Home Body Read online

  “Little darlings,” the woman cop said.

  “You sure you don’t need to be checked out, Rox?” Jimmy said.

  “Ahhh,” Roxanne said, shaking her head. “No, Jimmy. I just need to go home and take a hot bath.”

  We stood in the alley in the cold. Jimmy held out his hand in a Dickensian fingerless black leather glove. I shook it.

  “You’re the newspaper guy?” he said.

  I said I was.

  “You should write about these kids,” Delena said. “Out here loose and all the laws keep them here. Like stray dogs. Little kids, got no chance of making a life at all. Fourteen or fifteen and they’re done.”

  She looked to Roxanne.

  “Unless somebody like her gets hold of ’em before it’s too late.”

  Jimmy looked over at me, peering at my mouth.

  “They might be able to save that tooth,” he said. “If they can’t, hold on to your wallet.”

  He opened his mouth and touched a finger to his tooth, top, right front.

  “Post,” he said. “High school hockey. Cost, like, four grand.”

  He closed his mouth.

  “We round up these tykes, you want to file an assault complaint?”

  I shook my head, touched my tooth with my tongue.

  “Screw it.”

  “The kid getting beat, his name’s Rocky? Got a surname?”

  Roxanne thought for a moment, then shook her head.

  “No. He’s not one of mine. I just heard about him. Landed in town from somewhere up north. Stayed at the Port House, with the rest of them—at least he was, but he just kind of stands out. Sort of wimpy and studious-looking.”

  “What’s the name, a joke on the little Poindexter?” Jimmy said. “What’s he doing on the street?”

  “I don’t know,” Roxanne said. “I was trying to figure that out.”

  “Looks like he’d get eaten up,” I said. “Little skinny guy with glasses. Arms like sticks. Kicking him like that, they could kill him.”

  “They get on the street, they change,” Jimmy said, looking up from his notebook. “What was that movie about the kids on the island? It was on cable the other night.”

  “Lord of the Flies?” I said.

  “Right,” he said. “These kids. Leave ’em alone, they turn into little goddamn animals.”

  3

  k

  We talked on Market Street. I stood by the door as Roxanne sat in the driver’s seat, the Explorer idling, the snow falling, Roxanne running her fingers over the rips in her tights, the scratches on her thighs.

  “So what’s the deal with this Rocky kid?” I said.

  “I don’t really know.

  “Name’s a misnomer.”

  “Yeah,” Roxanne said. “He’s anything but, from what I can tell. I don’t know why he’s here, really. He doesn’t fit. He doesn’t have that hard shell.”

  “Not yet. How long has he been down here?”

  “I don’t know. I noticed him a couple of weeks ago. These kids, even if they’re soft underneath, they swagger.”

  “Their defense,” I said.

  “From years of being treated like dirt. Rocky was sort of wary, but he didn’t have it. The cockiness.”

  “The bravado.”

  “No. He looked like he needed a hug,” Roxanne said.

  “Where was this?”

  “At Port House. The shelter. I was looking for somebody else. But he just looked so vulnerable with these other kids. I said, ‘Who’s that?’ ”

  “What’d they say?”

  A seafood truck passed on the cobblestone street, compressor motor roaring, bound for the docks. I waited to hear Roxanne’s answer.

  “They said the kids called him Boonie, because he was from the country somewhere.”

  “You think anybody is looking for him?”

  “That was the odd part. Usually, you get a kid like him, you’ve got parents calling every shelter in the state, putting up posters all over town. Nobody had asked for Rocky at all.”

  “So he doesn’t have anybody?”

  “Or nobody who cares,” Roxanne said.

  “Boonie,” I said. “I wonder where in the boonies.”

  Roxanne gave me her warning look.

  “Jack, don’t head off on some wild goose chase. He’s a DHS problem, not yours.”

  I pictured his skinny arms, folded over his head as he curled up like an armadillo and the blows rained down. Roxanne said she had to go, had to get cleaned up and get back to the office. I said I had to go, too, didn’t want to be late. I said I loved her and kissed her on the cheek. She said she loved me too, and put the truck in gear. Then she turned to me one more time.

  “Jack,” she said. “Don’t.”

  I didn’t answer.

  4

  k

  It was quarter to one and my shift started at the Clarion at three. Three to eleven, Monday through Thursday. Two o’clock on Fridays and every other Saturday. A hundred and fifty dollars per shift and health insurance for twenty-five bucks a week. That was key. You needed health insurance to have a baby.

  Ours was four months away, good Lord willing, as my father used to say. One day Roxanne had said she’d have to go back to work after the baby was born because we couldn’t go without health insurance and my freelancing didn’t provide any. I said I’d go get us insurance and then she could stay home as long as she wanted, take care of one child instead of fifty. Try to raise our child well rather than trying to fix the problems of children gone so far astray.

  She said I was a dinosaur. I think she meant it in a nice way.

  So that was the impetus, and off I went. I hurried back to Congress Street and picked up the truck. Headed down the hill toward the highway. I glanced down at the CDs, looking for something to pass the two-hour ride. I sorted through music, glancing up at the traffic, back to the radio—

  Over at the kid in red plaid.

  He was standing in the doorway of a seedy corner store. I saw the jacket, the glasses, and then I’d passed the corner and traffic was moving me along, down the hill toward the next light. I stayed in the right lane, turned on the red light, drove a block, and turned up the hill again. A block up, I took a right onto a street of tenements that faced the backside of downtown, circled until the store was in sight, pulled over, and parked.

  There was no sign of Rocky.

  I shut the truck off, got out, and started walking on the sidewalk toward the corner. The doorway was visible now, but only part of it. The windows of the place were spray-painted white from the inside, and I couldn’t see through to the alcove where the kid had been. I hesitated, then kept going. In front of the store, I stopped. Listened. Turned the corner.

  He was gone.

  I stepped back and looked down the block. No Rocky. I looked back the way I had come. I looked the other way, and then opened the door of the store. A bell jingled and I went in. The counter was on the left. It was low and made of metal, dented like it had been drummed by a hammer. On the counter was a jar of eggs in a yellow solution, like something from high school biology. Behind the counter, someone coughed.

  I stepped forward and turned. Behind a cash register was an old smoke-colored woman. She looked at me and coughed again, as if to clear her throat to speak. Then she stopped and didn’t say anything. I looked closer and saw that her chair had wheels. On one of the armrests was a revolver hanging in a holster. On the wall behind her head were racks of cigarettes and cardboard displays of condoms.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Yup,” she said.

  “I’m looking for a kid.”

  She looked at me.

  “Glasses. Red plaid jacket. Kind of skinny.”

  “Ain’t seen him.”

  “He was just standing in the
doorway.”

  “Can’t see the doorway.”

  “I thought he might have come in,” I said.

  “Might’ve. It’s a free country.”

  She looked at me and rubbed her nose.

  “I’ll look around,” I said.

  I started to turn.

  “You a cop?” she said, behind me.

  I turned back.

  “No,” I said.

  “You his dad?”

  “No.”

  “Then what you want the boy for?”

  “I know him. I need to talk to him.”

  I looked at her but she didn’t say anything. I glanced around the store one more time, then turned to the door and opened it. The bell jingled like I was leaving Santa’s workshop. I stepped out onto the sidewalk, and the door jingled closed.

  I stood there for a moment, then walked to the corner of the building and turned. Stepping over trash and glass, I eased along the brick wall of the store and then paused again. Listened.

  I heard a scuff. A sniff. I turned the corner.

  “Rocky,” I said.

  He took a step back, but there was nowhere to go. Behind him was chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. He ran toward it and leapt, scrabbling up until his feet were at eye level. There was a clanging sound as he tried to climb higher, but then he grunted and slid down and turned and faced me, wide-eyed as a cornered animal, arms wrapped around his belly.

  “Relax,” I said, walking slowly toward him. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

  Rocky looked behind him, his eyes searching for a way out. I stopped five feet from him, hands in my jacket pockets.

  “I don’t want to scare you. I was driving by, that’s all. I saw you in the doorway. You know, you still should go to the hospital or something.”

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  His voice was a child’s, the sound of an eight-year-old coming from a fourteen-year-old’s body.

  “You’re not okay. Even I can tell that. You could have broken ribs, or I don’t know what. I’m not a doctor; I’m just a friend of Ms. Masterson’s. You know her, right?”

  His eyes searched me. His arms still were wrapped around his midsection. Snow flaked on his glasses, and he reached up with one finger and wiped the lenses, first one, then the other.

  “The State lady,” Rocky said.

  “Right. She was trying to help you, too.”

  “I don’t need any help.”

  I shook my head.

  “They would have stomped you into jelly, Rocky. Why were they doing that to you? You know those kids?”

  He looked at me. Nodded.

  “What’d you do to them?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Then why would they do that?”

  He shrugged.

  “They just decided to beat you up, for no reason? What’d you do? Wear the wrong color hankie?”

  Rocky stared at me, then looked down at the trash-strewn ground. He kicked at a flattened can with his sneaker. The sneakers were Nike Air Jordans, one red lace, one white. The can was Colt 45.

  “They said I was annoying,” he said quietly.

  “Harsh punishment for rubbing somebody the wrong way.”

  He shrugged again.

  “I can take it,” he said.

  “Why would you want to?”

  Another shrug. I shifted on my feet, blinked snow from my eyes.

  “Where you from, Rocky?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You from around here?”

  Rocky scowled. Then gave his head a little shake.

  “You from far away?”

  The shoulders came up, dropped back down. They were narrow shoulders, like the jacket was draped on a metal hanger.

  “I just mean, if you live nearby, I could give you a ride home. I don’t know why you’re kicking around on the street, but you don’t seem cut out for it.”

  “I’m fine,” he blurted, then clenched his teeth. He was angry.

  “I didn’t mean to insult you,” I said.

  “What do you care, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought you might be more hurt than you realized. And Ms. Masterson, she was worried. When she’s worried about something, it rubs off on me.”

  He looked at me, squinting as if to search for some seed of truth, or a hint of a lie.

  “If you want a ride, I’ll give you one. If you want to go to the hospital, get checked out, I’ll give you a lift over there. But I’ve got to go. I’m late for work. I’ve got to drive all the way to Bangor.”

  His eyes seemed to brighten behind the smeared lenses.

  “I used to go to Bangor.”

  He started to say something else, then caught himself and stopped.

  “I work in Bangor. I live in a place called Prosperity. It’s between there and here. Closer to there.”

  “Why you work way up there?”

  “I don’t know. It’s where the job is.”

  “What do you do for a job?”

  “I work for a newspaper.”

  “You mean, like a reporter?”

  “More like an editor. I do reporting for other papers. At this one I fix up other people’s stories.”

  “The spelling and stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, if you write about me, my name’s not Rocky.”

  I smiled.

  “My name’s not Jack. Nice to meet you, not Rocky.”

  “It isn’t,” he said, the anger rising to the surface like a hungry fish.

  “Okay, okay,” I said.

  “It’s David,” Rocky said.

  I smiled.

  “Okay, Dave. Good to officially meet you.”

  I turned and started to walk away. As I glanced back, I saw him take a couple of steps and clutch his abdomen again. I kept walking and he followed, five feet behind me. I turned the corner of the building and continued past the abandoned cars, toward the street. At the sidewalk, I turned back. He still was there, holding his belly and looking up the block, away from me.

  “My truck’s up here,” I said.

  I started off down the sidewalk. I sensed that he’d turned the other way, and then I heard the jingle of the bell on the door of the store. So he’d gone back in there. Thar was okay, I thought. The store lady seemed to be looking out for him. And then I heard the jingle again.

  At the truck, I looked back. He was walking along the sidewalk toward me. I opened the truck door, took out my big L.L. Bean duffel, and heaved it into the truck’s bed. I got in and popped the passenger door open from the inside. I moved CDs and the phone off of the passenger seat. He got in and reached over and closed the door, still clutching his belly with one arm.

  I turned the key, put the truck in gear, and drove.

  “I told Lannie I was okay,” he said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The lady in the store. She lets me eat there sometimes.”

  I glanced over at him. He seemed to be relaxing, the hard coating melting off. The more it melted, the younger he seemed.

  “That’s nice of her,” I said. “What do you eat?”

  “Cheez-Its and Doritos. Sometimes doughnuts. She gives me the doughnuts at the end of the day.”

  “All the basic food groups, huh?”

  “Yeah. She has a gun, you know.”

  “I know. I saw it.”

  “You went in?”

  “Yeah. I was looking for you.”

  “She didn’t rat me out, did she?”

  “No. Didn’t say a word.”

  He smiled.

  “Then how’d you know I was out back there?”

  “I felt the draft. The cold air when you opened the back door.”

  I
could see him processing that.

  “I should’ve closed it quicker, huh?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Where to?”

  We stopped at the stop sign at Congress Street.

  He hesitated. Wrapped his arms around himself, and pulled his legs up.

  “You hurt in the front or the back?” I said.

  “Kind of all over,” Rocky said.

  “Down low on your back?”

  “What’s down there?” he asked.

  “Kidneys, spleen. I don’t know. All your innards. Hospital?”

  “Will they call the cops?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied.

  “Cops will bring me home.”

  “But what’s worse? Going home or having your spleen rupture or something.”

  He considered it, his mouth set in a frown, forehead furrowed. It appeared to be a toss-up.

  5

  k

  I drove for a couple of blocks, waiting for Rocky to reveal some hint of why he had left home, what had turned his life down this dead end. The city was gray and cold, everything cast in the color of dirty cement. The heat had turned the truck cab into a sauna, but Rocky still was hunched in a near-fetal position, his hands between his thighs, his cheeks still white and cold.

  “They can’t make me go anywhere,” he muttered, then turned toward the window. “It’s the law.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “The cops. The State ladies. They can say what they want and I’m, like, ‘Kiss my butt.’ ”

  “You say that, huh?”

  “Well, I think it.”

  “Where do they want you to go? Home?”

  “I’m not going home. I don’t have one.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said. I braked to let a woman cross the street. She was heavy, legs like gnarled stumps. She shuffled along in unlaced basketball shoes.

  “Lots of people don’t have a home. Like that lady there, I’ll bet. When I lived in New York City there were homeless people all over the place. Living in cardboard boxes, under bridges. You know, highway overpass bridges? They get in there out of the rain and—”

  “I’m going to New York,” Rocky said.

  “Really. How you getting there?”

  “Hitch a ride. With a truck driver.”

  “Is that right? What are you going to do in New York?”