THE PLUNGE

By the time I got back to Lita’s room with my folded clothes, she’d cleared half her bottom drawer for my things. After depositing my clean laundry there, I took out a few of the new clothes she’d just bought me and went to the bathroom down the hall to change out of her loaned jeans and T-shirt. After shoving the geist stones into a hip pocket of my new pants, for lack of any better place to hide them, I returned to her room and asked if she’d like me to wash the borrowed clothes.

“Whose quarters you gonna use for that?” she replied, smiling as she tossed them to the back of her closet floor. I hadn’t thought of that. She pointed at two empty hangers on one end of her clothes bar. “Keep your hanging stuff at this end, okay?”

“Okay. …I need to find a way to make some money.”

“Why?”

“So I don’t have to keep mooching off of you. Could Adam hire me for something—under the table maybe?”

“Under the table? Aren’t you the savvy little boy.” She gave me a wry look, and shook her head. “Like I said yesterday, we just have to get you emancipated. You’re not costing me enough to matter, so let’s not worry about that for now. Take a break. Get your bearings, and when I have a minute, we’ll go down to Path and Passage to get all that started.”

“Okay.” At least I’d let her know it mattered to me. “Thanks.”

“So, I need to go now,” she said. “I’ve got the afternoon shift today, but I’ll be back around seven.” She dug into her pocket, pulled out a crumpled bill, and thrust it toward me. “Here’s enough to get yourself lunch or whatever. We’ll figure out dinner when I get back.”

I shook my head, and stepped back. “Thank you, but I don’t need more of your money. I’ll be fine ’til tonight.”

One of her eyebrows climbed slightly, and she put the bill back where it had come from. “So, what’re you gonna do all afternoon? Just hang out here?”

I hunched my shoulders, not having given the question any thought yet. “Maybe I’ll go out and get to know the Avenue better.”

She tilted her head. “Well, steer clear of Janus and those guys, okay? We talked things out last night, but he’s just bad news all around.” I thought again about my encounter with Billboard that morning, glad I hadn’t said anything to her. “If you need me, you know where I’ll be.”

“Right. Thanks. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Be good.” She wriggled her fingers at me and left the room.

I went to the window to gaze down at the street, watching her emerge and head off toward the Vineyard. Then I glanced around her room, wondering whether to go out as well or just stay here and continue sampling her books and music. Fingering the geist stones in my pocket, I considered her décor again. The room was full of things that seemed to hint at magic and spiritual mysteries: from her Goth clothing and the lavish velvets on her bed to the candles and trinkets on her little altar, and the Burton-esque music and movie posters…but I couldn’t really see anyone of Piper’s kind living in such a Spartan little room, or caring which end of a clothing bar I used. For all her eccentricities, everything about Lita’s life seemed…too mundane compared to anything I’d experienced at The Lady’s compound. I saw no hint of the Tree here, or of the flowing, organic aesthetic that had seemed to define so much of their art and architecture. Lita’s décor felt more like the ‘silly human fairytales’ that Piper had scoffed at. In fact, upon reflection, I thought much the same of Stacy’s shop, for all of its overtly magical trappings. I took a deep breath and unclenched a little, realizing how uncomfortable the idea of sharing this small room with such doubts about my host had been, and went back to looking out the window.

I had enjoyed my brief ramble that morning, until Billboard’s appearance had sent me scurrying back here. It was a lovely day out there, but…as Lita had implied, maybe wandering out to volunteer for more of Janus’s hazing wasn’t such a good idea. And that was when I realized how much of my day so far had been shaped by fear. I’d started out by fleeing my own response to Lita’s bra-breasted presence, then run back here in fear of Billboard’s menacing overture. I’d said nothing about that to Lita for fear she’d think again about how having me here might look to others. And now I was hesitating to go out on such a lovely day just because I might run into some new trouble there.

My last life had been just like this. Fear of risk, injury or disappointment. Fear of disapproval, penalties and failure. Fear of adventure and love and everything else I had been mourning on the night I’d gotten into all of this. And now… You’d just make all the same mistakes again, for the same reasons. I glanced down at Lita’s little bookshelf full of self-help manuals, and shook my head, so not wanting to give The Lady that satisfaction. A minute later, I was headed down the stairs and out the door, determined to walk right up and knuckle-bump the first street kid I saw. I could spend the afternoon hiding in fearful boredom, or I could spend it confronting my fears. It was time to start living adventurously! Janus and his lot weren’t the only act in town. Catcher had invited me to hang out with him and his friends too—and, unlike Billboard, seemed to mean it. I could do this. Why shouldn’t I?

The Avenue was back in full circus mode on a Sunday afternoon, and it didn’t take long to start spotting members of my new tribe clustered under shady awnings or bumming change at street corners. But for all my blustery resolve, the thought of trying to engage even the youngest of these people still scared me. My new old clothes felt suddenly too clean, and not half beat up enough to seem respectable. I was what they’d call a poser, and knew they’d see that instantly. Thanks to Lita, I wasn’t even really homeless anymore. These kids and I had virtually nothing in common. What had made me think I could just go ‘hang’ with them?

In the end, I decided to look for Catcher. Thanking him for sending me to Stacy wouldn’t require faking anything. Happily, it didn’t take long to find him sitting with three other guys against the front of El Vientre Feliz, a cheap taqueria three blocks from Stacy’s shop.

“Well, if it isn’t Lita’s kid,” he said in a lazy, not unfriendly way, as I arrived.

His companions chuckled softly.

“You already know?” I asked.

“Hell yah.” He gave me a wry look. “Who doesn’t? Clueless newb to kept man in just one day—and Janus’s ex, no less. Guess you’re not as helpless as I thought.” Though he never did quite smile, I could see he found it all tremendously amusing, as did the others, clearly. “Good thing Lita went to bat for you last night. Didn’t I tell you to keep clear of Janus?”

“How was I supposed to know she had anything to do with him?” I protested. “Billboard’s acting like she and I are… Is that what everybody thinks now?”

“Chill,” Catcher said wearily. “We’re not all idiots.”

“It’s your fault anyhow,” I said. “You sent me to Stacy, and she’s the one who called Lita. I came down here to thank you. I guess I owe you pretty big—unless I get killed.”

“He’s not gonna kill you,” Catcher snorted.

“Prob’ly,” said the boy beside him, grinning wickedly.

“You’re lookin’ better than you did,” said Catcher, pulling another half-smoked cigarette from his coat pocket. “Where’d ya get the clothes?”

Remembering how he’d called me ‘Lita’s kid,’ I could think of no safe answer.

“Might as well confess,” said Catcher, clearly loving every second of my discomfort as he lit his smoke. He jerked his chin toward the still-grinning boy beside him. “Gummy here saw you guys leavin’ the store.”

“She’s dressin’ you?” exclaimed the boy next to Gummy, apparently only now hearing the news. Despite the warming day, the hood of his gray sweatshirt was pulled so far forward that his face was barely visible. “You lucky bastard. So, you fuckin’ her already too?”

I felt my whole body blush.

“You wanna try talkin’ that kinda shit to Lita’s face?” Catcher asked the hooded boy severely. “She’d shut your mouth in a hurry.”

“I’m just joking,” the boy muttered sullenly.

“Well jokes like that’ll guarantee you die a virgin,” Catcher growled. “Lita’s helpin’ someone who needs it. What are you doing for anyone?”

The object of Catcher’s ire just stared at the pavement from under his hood. In fact, all three boys looked as if they’d just been chastened by dad, drawing my attention to how much older than them Catcher actually was, and making me wonder why he was hanging out with such comparative ‘kids.’ “Can I sit?” I asked, trying to sound unbothered by their mockery.

“It’s a free sidewalk,” grumbled the boy beneath the hoodie.

I settled against the wall at one end of their line, and said, “I’m Matt.”

“Gummy,” said the boy just past Catcher. He was tall and lanky with a wavy cloud of frizzy brown hair. His dirty blue jeans had no knees, and the T-shirt beneath his tattered army surplus jacket hadn’t been white in quite a while. “I’m crazy,” he said, grinning again.

“Oh.” I had no idea how else to respond.

“Stitch,” said the boy beneath the hoodie, still without looking up.

“Ask him why, he’ll punch you,” the boy sitting between Stitch and me said with a grin.

Faster than a striking snake, Stitch’s fist landed in that boy’s gut.

“What the fuck!” the punched boy protested.

Stitch reached up and yanked his hood down, leaning out from the wall to give me a manic grin, his head half shaved as if to show off the network of old scars meandering like pale train tracks up one side of his forehead and across his scalp.

I nodded, trying for convincing nonchalance, and, in a flash of inspiration, said, “Just tell me you didn’t get those dating Lita.”

The first to laugh was the boy Stitch had punched, joined a second later by Gummy and Stitch himself. A small wave of elation skidded through me. Getting these guys to laugh felt like winning some kind of battle—with them or with myself; I wasn’t certain which. I had clearly passed some kind of test, though, because everyone visibly relaxed.

Everyone but Catcher, that is. He grinned too, but gazed at me in a strange, probing way, making me wonder again if he could be one of the Stbrich brothers I was here to meet. He’d been paying me an awful lot of attention—right from the start. Even Lita had thought it strange. I felt the weight of those geist stones in my pocket again, and wondered, suddenly, if whatever power they were imbued with was detectable to Piper’s kind. If Catcher was one of them, could he sense what I was carrying? Should I have kept them with me at all, or risked leaving them back in my half of Lita’s bottom drawer?

“I’m Car Talk,” said the boy Stitch had punched, sticking out his fist for me to bump.

“Isn’t that…a radio show?” I asked.

“I love that show,” he said gravely.

“Me too,” I rushed to agree, praying he wouldn’t call my bluff before I’d had a chance to go listen to an episode or two.

And that, it seemed, was all it took.

We sat together watching people pass, in aimless conversation or companionable silence, sometimes making jokes about the ones who gave us nasty looks, or other fools whose clothes or conduct merited derision more than ours did. I answered when spoken to, but just listened mostly, mentally cataloguing their vocabularies and cadences. Catcher pulled a plastic bag of loose tobacco and some rolling paper from another coat pocket and made himself a new cigarette, passing it to the others when he’d had a drag or two. When Gummy offered the stub of it to me, I politely declined, but, to my relief, suffered no apparent disapproval for it.

Before long, others of our kind started to appear, sitting down to share a smoke, or swap small talk, introducing themselves to me, or sometimes just glancing furtively in my direction. I began to realize that being at odds with Janus was something of a badge of honor here. Being young, skinny, timid, brand new—and at odds with Janus, seemed to render me an object of real curiosity. Being all those things and ‘shacked up with Lita,’ as a girl named Caramel indelicately put it, seemed to make me a candidate for instant celebrity. As all this registered, I began to worry. I had been warned not to attract attention, and doubted Rain or Piper would be pleased to learn of my sudden notoriety. Was this why Catcher had looked at me that way earlier? Had he been telling me to cut it out?

I did all I could to deflect further interest, which just seemed to make them like me more. By early evening, a veritable stream of visitors was drifting by, pretending not to ogle me, though happily, if oddly, not one of them asked about my past for once.

I met boys named Ghost and Crimson, Slap, Caboose, Hound, Nickel, Zero, Jump and Bottle. Besides Caramel, I met girls named Rosary, Whisper, Beehive, Amanita, Toes, and Punch. Being just ‘Matt’ started feeling pretty drab—another mark of my non-belonging.

Some of those I met seemed hostile from the start, as if they’d only come to see if I could prove something to them. But most were surprisingly friendly, some even gentle. One of these, a girl named Tanzy, with blond bread rolls spilling from underneath a faded blue bandana, looked down at me as she got up to leave, and said, “Good luck, Junior Mint.”

“Junior Mint?” I asked her.

“That’s perfect!” laughed Gummy.

Car Talk nodded, grinning.

“Why Junior Mint?” I asked again.

“Little and sweet,” the girl said, smiling as she turned away.

Virtually no one on that street ever called me Matt again.

By the time I stood to go back ‘home,’ my immobilizing fear of these feral youth had shrunk almost to nothing. I waved goodbye and left them there, feeling more free to breathe than I could remember being…maybe ever. Yes, they were damaged goods, some of them in pretty alarming ways. But Piper had been right. They were all people. After a lifetime, it had taken just one afternoon—and the courage to sit down instead of fleeing—to learn this. I started back toward Lita’s place suspecting that these unsightly, unsettling castoff kids might be just the teachers I needed right now—maybe more than I needed the Stbrich brothers. After all, Mikayl’s son’s were supposed to teach me how to hide more effectively—but it had never seemed clearer to me than it did that evening how much of my life had already been spent hiding all too well, even from myself.

I’d walked less than a block before I heard someone trotting up behind me, and turned in alarm, fearing that Janus or one of his emissaries had been waiting to catch me alone again. But it was Catcher I found slowing to a walk beside me.

“Mind if I come along for a minute?”

“I’m…just going back to Lita’s place.”

He nodded. “I know. I just wanted to say…I guess I underestimated you. Yesterday. Sorry if I’ve seemed condescending.”

I sure hadn’t seen that coming, and had no idea what to say. “Condescending about what?

He shrugged. “Sayin’ you’d never make it here.” He gave me a tentative grin. “There’s more to you than I thought. I see that now. Just wanted to say you should come hang out anytime you want. It’d be good for those guys to see what company with some brains is like. They don’t get a lot of that.”

Even I, who knew nothing about life down here, could tell that this seemed…not normal. What I didn’t know was whether to ask, or not to ask the question my mind leapt to. If he was one of Mikayl’s sons, he wasn’t saying so, even though we were alone. So, should I go on playing dumb too? I decided on a middle path. “What’s your deal with those guys, anyway?”

He looked nonplussed. “Whadaya mean?”

“You’re a lot older than them. They treat you like their dad.” I shrugged. “You kind of act like it too. What’s that about?”

He gave me a strange, self-conscious smile. “See? That, right there. Nobody says the stuff you say. Nobody young as you are, anyway. What’s your deal? You some kind of boy genius?”

Oh… I was failing to be a ‘kid.’ And here I’d thought I was fitting in so well. “I asked first,” I replied, stalling for time to think about how best to respond.

He grinned and looked away. “And I thought you were helpless.” He shook his head. “Okay. Just to be clear, I’m not interested in being anybody’s dad. More like…an older brother, I guess.” He turned back to me. “So, I’m betting you’re not gonna be around here very long. You have too much going for you. But if you did end up here for some reason, you’d find out that no one’s life can just go on being about nothing but hanging out on a sidewalk everyday bumming change. Even our lives have to be about something.” He fell silent for a moment, seeming to consider his own words as we walked. “I just try to help out where I can. …Keep some of the younger ones from going clear off the rails.”

I had once briefly considered joining the Big Brother program—decades ago. I’d never gotten around to doing it, of course. Too scary. But the idea of a homeless, transient Big Brother… Now there was a concept. “So, why are you still here?” I asked. “You seem to have plenty going for you too.”

“I have my reasons,” he said flatly, looking away again. “Your turn now. Where’d you really come from?”

“I told you,” I replied. “It’s not safe to talk about it. And…I’d appreciate it if you tried not to get a lot of other people around here wondering such things about me. That might not be safe for me either.” I threw my arms up in a helpless gesture. “Yeah; I’m smarter than an average kid. Never done me a damn bit of good, though. What of it?”

Catcher nodded. “Well, that sure doesn’t satisfy my curiosity. But I hear you. I’ll let it be. See you around, I hope. Tell Lita I said hi.” He turned and started heading back the way we’d come, then stopped and turned toward me again. “She’s been through a lot,” he said uncertainly. “I like her and respect what she’s done to turn her life around. Don’t believe all the shit that Janus and those guys might tell you. They bend everything to suit themselves. But…she’s complicated. So be kinda careful there, okay?”

“Careful about what?”

He shrugged. “Just pay attention…to what she’s sayin’ and doing…and how things feel to you. Don’t ignore your instincts—with anyone around here—and things’ll go fine. That’s all I mean.”

He turned to go again, but I stopped him again by asking, “Why are you called Catcher?”

He looked back over his shoulder with an almost grin.  “Why do you think? I’m there to back up the batters.” He turned and walked away without glancing back again.

I watched him go, almost willing to bet he was the mentor I’d been sent here to meet. If so, I imagined he would make that clear whenever it was time, but I’d certainly continue to make myself available.

Back at Lita’s building, I knocked at her door before trying my key in the lock.

“Who is it?” came her answer from inside.

“It’s me.”

She pulled the door open, and frowned at me. “Have you lost your key?”

“No.” I held it up for her to see.

“Then just come in.”

“I was trying to respect your privacy,” I said, following her inside.

“Your key in the door is plenty of warning, if I need it,” she said, going to sit on the edge of her bed. “But I’d leave you a sign on the door if I’m getting dressed or something. So, how was your day?”

She hadn’t smiled once this whole time. In fact, she seemed irritated by something, though I couldn’t see why it should be me. “It was fine. How was yours?” I asked neutrally.

“Where’d you go?” she asked, ignoring my question—which seemed even stranger.

I shrugged. “I went to find Catcher, and thank him for sending me to Stacy. Then I hung out with him and his friends all day. He asked me to tell you hi, by the way.”

“How was that for you?” she asked a little less severely. “Hanging out.”

Why was I getting grilled? “Kind of scary at first,” I admitted. “That’s…kind of why I did it, I guess. I’m trying to face my fears more now. But it turned out to be fun. I met a lot of interesting people.” I rattled off some of the intriguing monikers I’d heard. “They’ve started calling me Junior Mint. I guess that’s my name around here now.”

She nodded, seeming even more mollified, though her lips remained pursed. “Well…I’m glad you had a good time. But don’t get too comfortable out there. That’s not your destination—which is why I’ve taken you in here. We’re going to get you down to Path and Passage soon, and wherever your road goes from there, it won’t be to the Avenue.”

“Are you…upset with me for some reason?”

She looked away and sighed, then patted the bed next to her. “Come sit down. We need to talk for a minute.”

She was pissed at me! What could I have done?

I sat down beside her, as requested, and waited until she turned to face me. “I hear you had a little talk with Billboard this morning.”

Oh crap, I thought despondently. And now I’m out of here.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

“I didn’t want to upset you. He said a bunch of really rude things…about you—obvious lies that I saw no reason to repeat.”

“Did he,” she said dryly. “There’s a shocker.” She didn’t seem surprised, or even very upset. But she stared at me as if I were still keeping something from her.

“I’m not stupid, Lita. I know exactly why people say things like that. My, uh, uncle liked to say that shit only stinks worse if you stir it.” To my relief, her lips scrunched around an obviously aborted laugh. “I just didn’t want to stir that pile.”

She looked away, now smiling openly. “You are the strangest kid I’ve ever met.”

Yeah, I thought. I really needed to get a handle on that quickly. I’d had no idea until this evening how badly I was outing myself—which I’d clearly just done again.

“I was afraid you might have taken that ass wipe seriously and tried to go hang out with them,” she said, turning back to me. “They would eat you alive. You know that, right?”

I shrugged. “I guess so. Sure. How’d you even find out about this morning?”

Her expression sobered again. “News travels fast here, Matt. You need to know that. No one can wait to tell everyone they meet whatever they’ve heard. But it’s really important you don’t keep anything from me again. Got that? I don’t need you to protect me—or my feelings. I’ve got my own back just fine. I need to know what’s happening with you,” she said, pointing her finger at me, “or I can’t help make sure you get free of this place before…something stupid gets in the way. No more info-management with me. Right? The one thing I don’t put up with—in anyone—is lying. Okay?”

I nodded, hopeful that she wasn’t going to kick me out after all. No info-management… Well then… “He, uh… They’re telling everyone that you and me…are—”

“I know what they’re saying,” she interjected, frostily. “Billboard’s just mouthing whatever Janus tells him to. But that’s not your problem either. No one who matters any to me is going to listen to that shit.” Her gaze became speculative. “It’s probably a good thing you hung out with Catcher and his friends all day. No one who met you for ten seconds is going to believe such garbage either.”

No, of course not, I thought, a little glumly. How could such a dweeby little kid be ‘shacking up’ with anyone? …I needed to start working out now too. It was all going to be different this time—no matter what The Lady thought.

“So,” she said, standing up, “wanna go down and make some dinner?”

“That would be great,” I said, standing as well, suddenly aware of how empty my stomach had become since that second breakfast.

As Lita started toward the door, she turned and smiled at me just the way she’d always done before. “Facing your fears, huh?” she half chuckled. “You really are the weirdest kid.” Her smile softened. “But in the most beautiful ways. Don’t let anybody here change you, Matt. I’m a pretty decent judge of people, and I can already tell you’re just going to get more and more amazing as you grow up.”

The way she looked at me then…made me wish I’d asked The Lady to make me just a few years older. Twenty-twenty hindsight; always a day late and a dollar short.