I should know better than to walk along main streets. Cops use main streets. But when I left The People’s Church, I wanted to get out of Cement City and to the ocean as fast as I could. And I didn’t want to get turned around again. So I headed west the way I’d memorized from the map at the library: Follow Wilshire Blvd. (By the way, just so you don’t think I’m stupid, I decided to go west instead of south because on the map there were more green spaces along Wilshire, and following the Los Angeles River south to the ocean seemed very depressing. Plus, I started thinking that with the way they pour cement around here, the Cement River probably leads to Concrete Beach.)
I almost asked Shanana about the beaches and which one she thought was the best (because according to the map, there are miles and miles of them), but I really didn’t want her or the reverend to know where I was planning to go. And I’m glad I didn’t because Shanana started bringing up my mother.
“Sweet child,” she said, “I think we should get you some help. That mama of yours is just not showing up.”
“Oh, she’s coming,” I told her, like I really believed it. “We’ve done this before. You don’t mind me staying here, do you?”
“No, of course not! I’m just hopin’ everything’s okay.”
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “And you’ve been really, really nice.”
So I acted like I was planning to stay on longer, but the first chance I got, I stashed away a ton of food and took off.
I found Wilshire Blvd. and I tried to pace myself as I walked. Not too fast or you look suspicious. Not too slow or you look unsure. But it’s been really, really hot here, and it’s hard to move at a steady pace. According to a big billboard temperature sign that I saw, it was 101 degrees yesterday. Actually, I’m sure it was even hotter than that. You know how they factor in wind chill when it’s really cold, which makes the temperature even colder? (“Last night’s low was thirty-one degrees, but with wind chill, that figure dropped to nineteen.”) Well, around here there’s the opposite of wind chill. There’s asphalt heat. I swear heat radiates off the street and jacks the temperature up another ten degrees. And all the air conditioners that are cranked up to cool off the inside of buildings pump hot air outside. So up in the sky where they’ve got that temperature sign it may be 101 degrees, but down here on the street with the fire-breathing air conditioners and asphalt, it’s more like 120 degrees.
WHERE’S THE OCEAN???????
Too late to find that today, so let me finish telling you about the cops:
The same cop saw me, two days in a row. I recognized her, because how many cops do you see with wraparound shades and bleached cornrows? And she recognized me, because how many twelve-year-olds with green corduroy pants (that’s all they had at The People’s Church that fit me) and an overstuffed backpack do you see hiking down the same street, miles from where you’d spotted them the day before?
But instead of doing something really constructive like offering me a lift to the ocean so I could jump in and COOL OFF, she pulled over and called, “Excuse me?”
I didn’t pay one bit of attention to her. I just kept walking.
“Excuse me?” she said again, and this time she came onto the sidewalk.
I smiled at her and kept walking.
“Stop!” she commanded. “I’m talking to you!”
I turned and did something my mom used to do. I asked her, “Pardonnez-moi?” like I didn’t understand a word she was saying.
She frowned at me and said, “You some two-pint tourist?”
I only know about three French words, but that’s all my mom knew, either, so I did what she used to do: I made up whole sentences of phony French, shoving them through my nose as I spoke.
“Stop!” the cop snapped. “You don’t understand English?”
“Oui! Oui!” I said, then spoke a bunch more phony French. And, in an effort to get away from her, I channeled my phony mother, Louise, as I curtsied and said, “Au revoir!”
It worked. The cop threw her hands in the air, made some grumbling sounds, and got back in her cruiser.
Inside, I felt really good. Like both my mother and Louise were watching over me, helping me.
Crud. There I go again. I hate getting all weepy about my mom. Why isn’t she here with me? Why did she have to go and OD? I hate Eddie for getting her hooked, you hear me? I hate him, hate him, hate him! If he wasn’t dead already, I swear I’d kill him.
Lousy good-for-nothing creep.
But I really don’t want to talk about him or her. I was working up to telling you about this dog named Knobs, so that’s what I’m going to do.
After I ditched that cop, I got off the main drag quick, thinking it would be smarter to follow a parallel, less patrolled road. That’s when I spotted Knobs coming out from between some buildings. All of a sudden it seemed like ages since I’d seen a dog. You know, petted a dog. So I started walking quicker and called, “Here, boy!” (I didn’t know his name yet.) I whistled and said it again. “Here, boy!”
He glanced over his shoulder as he pranced along the sidewalk in front of me. So I said, “Hey, wait up, fella! What’s your name?”
He walked a little faster but kept looking over his shoulder. Not like he was afraid of me. More like he had someplace to get to and sort of wanted me to come along.
So I followed him. Up the street. Over. Up another street. Over. Up another street. Zigzag, zigzag we went until we got to a park. It was small and scroungy, with a lot of dead grass and scrawny trees and graffiti. But Knobs waited by the water fountain, tail wagging, obviously wanting me to push the button so he could jump up and get a drink.
See? Dogs are smart.
After we’d both lapped up about a gallon of water, I read his tag and started calling him his name and just ruffled and hugged and let him happy me up. He was so panty and waggy and sweet. I tossed a stick for him some, I shared my food with him. (I gave him the stuff that was getting pretty borderline from baking in my backpack in the sun.) Then I gave him another drink from the fountain and got a drink myself, but when I turned back around, he was gone.
You probably already figured this out, but I was so busy following Knobs that I got totally lost. And when I started walking again, I thought I knew which way was west, but my west turned out to be north. And do you know where I am now?
Beverly Hills!
This area is like the opposite of where I’ve just come from, and something about that is so, so weird. How did it go from concrete, barbed-wire fences, graffiti walls, and scroungy, scraggly brown grass to this in just a few blocks? There are palm trees. Tall, graceful palm trees. Whole streets are lined with them. And you should see the lawns these people have! They’re like lush oceans of grass. And the temperature is a good twenty degrees cooler here, too. I’m not exaggerating.
So, are these movie-star homes?
I have no idea.
But I can tell you this: There’s one person who spent last night in Beverly Hills who is definitely not a movie star.
She’s a sea gypsy!
Ha ha!
And you should see the stuff these people throw away. The food in their trash bins could feed an army! I had some kind of cheesy scones, a baked potato (with plenty of butter and sour cream still on it!), and the rind of a roast beef for dinner.
Yum!
Plus, I found a great hideaway behind some shrubs in an amazing backyard. You wouldn’t believe this backyard. It has actual rolling hills for a lawn, plus a tennis court, a swimming pool, and the most beautiful purple-flowered trees I’ve ever seen.
It’s nice here.
Real nice.
Same backyard, a couple days later
There’s a girl who gets a tennis lesson every day at 10:00. I may not know her, but I still hate her.
Picture this: white tennis skirt and tank top, spotless shoes, a white sun visor, sweat bands around both wrists, and sleek hair pulled back into a perfect braid.
Oh, you’re thinking, poor you. You?
??re jealous.
Okay, I admit it. I am a little. But that’s not why I hate her. I hate her because she’s snotty and whiny. I hate her because she’s got opportunity but no drive. That little diva doesn’t even try. You should hear her talk back to the instructor: “You hit it too hard!” “I’m not doing backhand today!” “My ankle hurts!” “You told me to do it like that. Make up your mind!”
I’d like to slap her silly! If I could switch places with her, I’d work my heart out. I’d listen. I’d sweat. I’d try.
Switching places with her would be funny, actually. Her living in the shrubs, me in the house? Sort of like The Prince and the Pauper, only it’d be The Princess and the Gypsy. I’d enjoy the good life, she’d learn to eat out of garbage cans. I’d become a tennis pro, she’d learn to regret not appreciating what she had.
Nice thought, but it’s not going to happen. Reality is, I’m stuck in the bushes. Reality is, I spend my whole day thinking about food and shelter and about how not to get caught. Reality is, I may have survived two months as a gypsy, but I’ve got six more years to go before I can get a job and rent an apartment and buy real food.
Six more years.
Am I really going to keep doing this for six more years?
Okay. The princess’s lesson is over now, and I’m going to say this because I’m hoping it’ll help me sort things out:
I don’t want to watch other people play tennis for six years. I can barely stand doing it for three days.
I don’t want to eat other people’s garbage for six years.
I don’t want to run and hide and lie and steal for six years.
I don’t want to feel this all-alone.
I don’t want to be this bored.
That’s it, right there. That’s the one that’s bugging me the most. I’m bored. If my stomach’s not aching and I’m not tired or scared or on the run, I’m sitting around with nothing to do. Why do you think I write in this thing? And six more years of this? I don’t know if I can take that. And then what? When I’m finally eighteen, how am I going to get a job? I haven’t even finished elementary school! Nobody’s going to hire me. So where’s that leave me? On the streets? Sleeping in bushes, eating out of trash cans?
Well, at least I’d be able to get into shelters, but I don’t want to live in shelters. I want a home! I want a dog! I want someplace where I belong.
And you know what? While I’m actually saying all this, I’m going to tell you something else. When I grow up, you know what I’d really, really love to be?
A dog doctor.
Forget cats, forget horses, I’d be a veterinarian who specialized in dogs. I’d be the best, too. People would come from miles around because they’d heard about Dr. Holly Janquell’s special way with dogs.
I can’t believe I actually told you that.
I’m a homeless girl, hiding in the bushes, dreaming about becoming a vet.
How pathetic is that?
Two (?) days later
This is a weird neighborhood. Everyone’s got a full-blown park for a backyard (and some for a front yard), but you rarely see anyone around. Cars zoom by on the main road, but the “estates” are dead. Where are all the people? Why aren’t they using their pools? Why aren’t they out playing golf on their back lawns? Are they too old? Are they on location somewhere making movies? Why have a million-dollar estate if you’re not going to use it?
I don’t get it.
I don’t get it at all.
Who knows what day it is…
I finally got caught by the gardener. He didn’t catch me catch me, he just saw me and chased me off. Better him than that bratty girl, that’s for sure. She’d have screeched for the police. He just chattered in Spanish and came after me with his leaf blower.
I think I was just waiting to get caught. I was there way too long. Beverly Hills was not my destination, and really, I was wasting my time hanging out in the safety of that backyard. I guess I just got comfortable there. It may not have been the beach, but compared to the cement jungle? It was paradise.
Hmm. Maybe that’s what happens if you get comfortable someplace. Maybe you need some motivation to move on. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe it’s not just being comfortable. Maybe it’s being used to. A place can be very uncomfortable, but if you’re used to it, it gives you a strange sense of comfort. Did that make any sense? For example, why do people stay in places or jobs or relationships that they hate? Why don’t they just leave?
Because they’re used to it, that’s why.
Wait a minute, I can hear you saying. Not everyone’s willing to chuck the little they’ve got and eat out of trash cans.
If it means winding up someplace better than where they were, why not?
Oh, so you don’t think I’m better off than I was?
That’s because you don’t get it, Ms. Leone. You don’t get it and you probably never will. Here’s the truth: I would WAY rather be hungry and tired and scared on the streets of L.A. than put up with the “comfort and safety” of the Benders’ house.
I wouldn’t go back there for all the silk sheets in China.
And if you don’t think I’m better off than I was, you should see this day! It is drop-dead gorgeous. It’s hot, but I’m sitting on a park bench in the shade, and there’s lots of grass and a nice, cool breeze, and it doesn’t feel hot.
Ha! I just got a little mental picture of you: You’re in- doors with the air-conditioning cranked way up because it’s 100 degrees and 98% humidity outside and the mosquitoes are swarming and the bugs are atrocious. Am I right? Summers there are awful! Winters there are awful. See? Why do you stay? You ought to run away! Hop a train! Stow away on a bus!
What am I saying? You could just buy yourself a ticket.
It would be interesting to talk to you if you did it the other way, though.
We could compare scars and bruises.
It might be fun.
3:10 p.m.
I’ve been sitting here, thinking again about how I talk to you like you’re really there. Not out loud like some crazy street person, don’t be stupid. I mean in this thing. I wouldn’t say two words to you in school, but now I chat away about everything, even the weather.
That’s weird enough right there, but what’s even weirder is that it really feels like I’m talking to someone.
It really feels like I’m talking to you.
Why is that?
And why do I keep doing it when I know I’m never going to see you again?
4:30 p.m.
I just found out that it’s the 18th of August. Unbelievable! How can it be the 18th of August?
Time is a weird thing. In some ways it feels like I just left The People’s Church.
In some ways it feels like forever ago.
There’s that ebb and flow in my mind about other things, too. Where it feels really close, then way far away. The Benders, the train, the bus, Louise, the library, my mother…waves of memories that wash in, then wash out. Close, then far.
Fear’s like that, too.
Still August 18th, 10 p.m.
I didn’t want to admit it before, but the wave of fear was crashing, and crashing hard. Everywhere I go, I try to stay in the background. And that great warm-and-breezy park I told you about was the perfect place to spend the day, and maybe the night. But there was this man there. He had thin hair, combed back. He was a little paunchy but not bad, and was of medium height. Just your average middle-aged Joe.
He wasn’t homeless. He was wearing businessman pants and shoes, sunglasses, and was clean-shaven. At first I thought he was just enjoying an afternoon in the park, but then I realized that he wasn’t really reading his newspaper.
He was watching the playground.
I kept a sly eye on him. He gave me the creeps like I haven’t felt in ages. And I made up my mind that nothing was going to stop me from tackling him if he tried to snatch a kid. I’d go down in a splat of gypsy glory if I had to, but there was no way I was going to
let him touch a kid.
I was keyed up for over an hour because of this guy. He brought back all these feelings of being little and vulnerable and scared and confused, of gaping wounds in the heart that no one can see.
But then he put down his newspaper and left.
You know how the D.A.R.E. people came to school and told us that drugs burn holes in your brain or make you paranoid or have flashbacks or, you know, do permanent damage to your head? Well, after that guy left, I started worrying that maybe my experiences have been like drugs to my brain. Maybe they’re making me have flashbacks or paranoia, or they’ve permanently branded my brain with suspicion. The guy was probably just enjoying the beautiful afternoon, remembering the carefree joy of his youth by watching kids frolic in the park.
After a few minutes I went over and got his newspaper (which is how I found out what day it is). I actually sat on his bench for a while, but it felt kind of creepy. Like he was still there.
So I went to another bench, where I wrote in this and read the paper.
But I still had that creepy feeling, so I left the paper behind and moved again, and that’s when I noticed someone lurking in the shadows of the trees behind the bench where I’d been sitting. It was the same man, and he wasn’t watching the kids on the playground.
He was watching me.
I took off quick. And I thought I’d ditched him, only when I came out of the Grab and Go mini-market (where I’d done just that, and was all keyed up about it because all I’d gotten was a protein bar and it hadn’t exactly been easy), I saw him in a car in the parking lot.
I almost pointed and shouted, That guy is stalking me! You hear me? If I wind up dead, it’ll be because of that guy right there! But I didn’t do that because people would have taken one look at me and thought, Deranged homeless girl. Probably on drugs.
So what would you have done, Ms. Leone? Called the cops?
Well, that’s not exactly an option for me, is it. So what I did was go behind his car to write down his license plate in this thing. That way if he did snatch me and murder me, there’d be a trail of evidence.