“That’s for a doctor to decide,” Officer Ryan replied.
“I don’t have time for this,” the black-haired policewoman complained. “Either you let go of her right now or you’re gonna be sorry.”
“Come on, hon, be a good kid and let her go.” Officer Ryan reached toward Rainbow. “I promise we’ll take good care of her. Don’t you want your friend to be okay?” She put her hands on mine. She was still wearing those latex gloves.
“I’ll never see her again,” I whimpered.
Officer Ryan’s eyebrows dipped with sympathy. “You really care about her, don’t you?”
I nodded. “She’s one of us.”
“Like a tribe or something?”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“For God’s sake, Jane,” the black-haired policewoman grumbled like this was a total waste of her time.
Officer Ryan looked into my eyes. It was a different look than before. I can’t explain it, but I could feel it. “Listen, I’m sorry I have to do this, but it’s my job. I promise I’ll tell you where she is so you’ll be able to find each other. Okay?”
“You swear?” I said.
“Cross my heart.” Officer Ryan closed her hands around mine and slowly, gently lifted them off Rainbow. She carefully pulled Rainbow to her feet. One of Rainbow’s sleeves slid back.
“Oh!” Officer Ryan caught her breath when she saw all the cuts and scabs on Rainbow’s arms.
“They cut themselves,” the black-haired policewoman explained. “A lot of them do it. The girls especially.”
Holding Rainbow by the arms, Officer Ryan and the black-haired policewoman led her away. Rainbow half walked and half allowed herself be pulled along, sometimes taking a step, sometimes letting the toes of her shoes scrape on the floor.
That wet gust of wind blew through me and my eyes got watery. It was so strange. So long since I felt like crying.
The fluffy blond came over. She put her hands on her hips and turned so that she was looking over her shoulder at me. “Child, do you know how bad you just got played? They ran the oldest cop trick in the book. Good cop, bad cop. One acts all rough and mean to make you hate her, and the other acts all sweet and nice to make you like her. Next thing you know, you want to do the nice one a favor just to show the mean one whose side you’re on. You really believe that crap about them telling you where your friend is going? Honey, they don’t give a hoot about you or your friend. They just can’t let junkies die in jail. That’s real bad publicity, understand? That girl cop ain’t gonna tell you nothin’. She just doin’ her job. Next time they play that game, I bet the black-haired one’ll be all sweetness and the blond will be the mean, nasty one. They do it to get what they want, honey.”
The tears came faster and I felt my lower lip start to quiver. I didn’t want to believe what she was saying, but I knew it was most likely true.
The small woman with the short black hair came over. “What’s the point of telling her that?” she demanded of the fluffy blond. “You knew they were gonna take that little junky girl no matter what. So why you tryin’ to make this girl feel bad now? What good is that?”
“I’m just tellin’ her how it works,” the fluffy blond replied.
“Oh, sure. Like you know that police lady ain’t gonna come back and tell her where they send the little junky girl.”
“You think she will?” the fluffy blond asked.
“I seen stranger things,” replied the smaller woman. “And even if she don’t, why you gotta be the one to spread the bad news?”
By then it didn’t matter what either of them said. What mattered was that Rainbow was gone and I felt empty and alone in a cold cell filled with strangers, in a cold city filled with strangers, in a cold world.
I put my hand in my pocket and felt the card Detective Charles gave me. I took it out and tore it into little pieces.
EIGHTEEN
I fell asleep. When I woke up most of the women who’d been in the cell the night before were gone, and a whole new bunch was there. The fluffy blond and the small woman with the black hair were gone. Rainbow was gone. I had to go to the bathroom really bad, but I didn’t want to use the toilet in front of all those women so I lay on the floor in the corner and waited. I felt dried salt trails in the corners of my eyes and wondered if I’d cried in my sleep.
After a while a policewoman came in. She had red hair and was so skinny that even her heavy gun belt didn’t make her look fat. She pointed at me. “You. Come on, let’s go.”
I got up and followed her out of the cell and into the hall.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
“Huh?”
“They call me Maybe. It’s my name.”
“What about your real name?”
“It is my real name.”
“Okay, Maybe, you know where we’re going?”
I yawned. “To the bathroom, I hope.”
She stopped. “What about the cell? Oh, you didn’t want to go in front of all those ladies, right?”
“So could I go now?”
“Maybe, Maybe, but I’m gonna have to come in there with you. Gotta make sure there’s no funny stuff.”
We went into the bathroom and I let myself into a stall. “Is Officer Ryan here?” I asked.
“Her shift ended,” the policewoman answered. “She’s gone.”
I felt a stab in my heart. It figured that she left without telling me where they took Rainbow. The fluffy blond was right. I got played big time. Back out in the hall the red-haired policewoman said, “Back to my original question. You know where you’re going?”
I shook my head.
“You want to know?”
I shrugged. What difference did it make? At the end of the hall she pushed open a door and I followed her into a large room with a lot of chairs and benches. A woman with long brown hair was sitting on one of the benches. She was wearing a bright red wool cap and puffy light blue parka. When she saw us she got up.
“Hi, my name’s Laura and I’m from the Youth Housing Project. What’s your name?”
I recognized her voice. She was the female flashlight. I told her my name was Maybe.
“You look familiar,” Laura said. “Have I ever seen you before?”
“Maybe.”
She smiled. “I bet that’s your answer to a lot of questions.”
I could have answered maybe, but I didn’t. We went through a door to the outside. Since I just woke up I thought it was morning, but from the way the sun was behind the buildings, I could see that it was afternoon. And cold. I left the sweatshirt in the cell. All I had on was the white T-shirt. Goose bumps rose on my arms, and I began to shiver.
“That’s all you’ve got?” Laura asked as we stopped next to a dented blue van that said Youth Housing Project on the side. She opened the back door and took out a navy blue blanket. “Put it around your shoulders. It’ll keep you warm until we get to the project.”
I pulled the blue blanket around my shoulders. It was thinner than I expected, but I was glad to have it. We got into the van. It smelled like coffee. Some empty white Styrofoam cups lay on the floor between the front seats.
Laura started to drive. “Do you know anything about the Youth Housing Project?”
“You got a lot of rules.”
Laura frowned. “What makes you think that?”
“You told me.”
The lines between her eyes deepened. “That rainy night a few weeks ago you were in that building off Avenue C?”
“Yeah.”
“So which of our rules would be so hard for you to live with?” Laura said.
“I don’t know. All of them.”
“I don’t think we have that many. Just what the state demands in order to get our funding. Don’t you think it’s worth agreeing to a few rules so that you can have a clean bed and clothes and a roof over your head?”
“Maybe.”
“Why not give it a try, okay? We’ll give yo
u a bath and a meal and a comfortable bed. What could be so bad about that?”
“I don’t know.”
NINETEEN
The Youth Housing Project was in a four-story brick building on Avenue B. I got to wash and put on clean clothes. The other kids said hello, and then went back to watching TV They didn’t stare at my skin the way some strangers did. Maybe they were used to kids who looked different. At dinner I sat at a round table with five other kids and ate spaghetti with meatballs. I might have had strange, splotchy skin, but the girl next to me had dyed black hair with blond roots and purple highlights, studs and bars through her eyebrows, nose, lips, ears, and tongue, and tattoos on the fingers of both hands. The letters on her right hand spelled GIVE and those on her left spelled TAKE. Her name was Spyder and when she asked where I was from I said, “Nowhere and everywhere.”
She nodded and said, “Right,” like that made perfect sense.
After dinner we watched more TV and then they told us it was time to go to bed. I didn’t care because I was tired. We went upstairs to a room with five bunk beds and open cubbies for clothes. My bed was in the bunk under Spyder’s. At one end of the room was an office with a big window. A woman sat inside watching us.
“They watch you?” I asked Spyder.
“All day and all night.” She shrugged like she didn’t care. “You’ll get used to it.”
The other girls changed into pajamas or baggy T-shirts, but I had nothing to sleep in.
“Here.” Spyder tossed me a black Megadeth T-shirt.
“Thanks.” I undressed and pulled it on and got into the bunk bed. The blanket and sheets were old but smelled clean. It was the first time I’d lain in a real bed since I’d left home. As I pulled the blanket up to my chin, and my head sank into the soft pillow, I felt myself relax. It wasn’t only that the bed was comfortable. It was the feeling that I was safe for the night—a feeling I’d forgotten. I listened to Spyder and the other girls talk for a little while, but I fell asleep pretty fast because the next thing I knew, the room was filled with sunlight and Laura was in the doorway saying it was time to get up.
Still tired and wanting to go back to sleep I pulled the pillow over my head. A hand touched my shoulder.
“You have to get up now,” Laura said.
“I’m tired.”
“It’s time for breakfast. Aren’t you hungry?”
My stomach felt empty, so even though I wanted to sleep, I got up and went downstairs. I sat next to Spyder at the round table and had cold cereal and juice for breakfast. Then it was time to sit in a circle and talk about our lives. Laura said I didn’t have to, but she urged me to join in. All I could think about was that soft pillow and those smooth warm sheets.
“I want to go back upstairs,” I said.
“That’s not allowed,” Laura said. “If you have to sleep, you can sleep down here.”
A bunch of kids gathered in a circle to talk. Most looked a few years older than me. Like Spyder, they had tattoos and piercings and dyed hair. They sort of looked like street kids, only cleaned up. All the chairs and spots on the couch were taken so I lay down on the floor and tried to close my eyes. It wasn’t easy to sleep with everyone talking, and it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the bunk bed upstairs. Then they turned on the TV and watched until lunch. Only I wasn’t hungry.
“You still have to sit with everyone at the table,” Laura said.
After lunch they wanted us to do an art project with feathers and string and pieces of wire. Laura said I didn’t have to, so I just sat there. Spyder smiled, but the other kids mostly ignored me. By then I was hungry again and wanted something to eat, but Laura said I had to wait until dinner.
I waited until she left the room. Then I took a black ski jacket from the closet and left.
It was getting dark when I got back to the bridge. OG had hung the blue tarp again and Pest, Maggot, and Jewel were inside. Jewel was rocking back and forth and staring up at nothing. Someone else was in the orange sleeping bag. My heart jumped for a second at the thought that it might be Rainbow. I looked closer. It was Tears.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” Her answer was as hollow as her eyes.
“Where you been?” I asked.
“Nowhere.”
“That night at The Cradle,” I said, “I came back to look for you and you were gone.”
Tears turned her face away and pulled the sleeping bag over her head.
“Where’ve you been?” Maggot asked me.
“Rainbow got picked up by the cops and I went with her,” I said. “Anyone seen her?”
No one answered.
“Then they sent me to the Youth Housing Project,” I said.
“Did you enjoy the accommodations, my dear?” Jewel suddenly asked.
“I liked sleeping in a real bed again.”
“Then why’d you leave?” Maggot asked.
“Too many rules. And they watch you all the time. Even when you sleep.”
“So it’s not just about their state funding, right?” Maggot asked.
“I don’t see why the state would care when I eat or sleep,” I said.
“It’s all about decorum, darling,” Jewel said as he rocked.
“It’s all about fear of anyone different,” said OG.
“It’s all about brainwashing you to fit in,” Maggot said.
It got dark and the temperature must have dropped twenty degrees. Like animals, we burrowed into our nests of blankets and newspapers and plastic bags, and curled up close to each other to stay warm.
But I hardly got to sleep. OG coughed. Then Maggot coughed. Jewel sneezed and mumbled to himself. Tears coughed and cried. They were all sick. The cars roared above. In the moonlight jagged hunks of snow-covered ice floated down the river like icebergs. I watched the sun come up. The tops of the buildings started to glow. Bursts of red morning sunlight reflected off the windows. The murky green-brown river turned a lighter shade.
Maggot sat up. “I have to get some cough medicine. Anyone have any money?”
“Plenty, darling,” Jewel said, still rocking back and forth and staring off. “As much as you need. The family comes from royalty, you know. It’s all in offshore accounts. Those rumors about us being Eurotrash are so nasty.”
Maggot rolled his eyes. “Anyone else have any money?”
“Just the squeegee,” OG said and coughed so hard he had to put his hands on the ground to brace himself.
We took turns trying to get drivers to pay us for cleaning their windshields. When you stood out in the traffic, the icy wind blew right through your clothes. The streets were slippery, and you had to be careful not to fall and get run over. When it was my turn I waited on the corner until the light turned red, then picked up the bucket and walked between the cars. No one wanted his windshield washed. Here and there a driver gave me a quarter anyway. One man in an expensive-looking car rolled down his window and thrust a dollar out.
“Just don’t wash my windshield, okay?” he begged.
The light turned green and I hurried back to the corner, trying to avoid the cars. Loose sheets of newspaper blew past and the traffic lights above swung like fruit on a tree. It was so cold my nose and ears stung. The drivers passed and didn’t even look. I was nothing. A creature without a name who nobody cared about. One of the unlucky ones who got left behind when the big bus of happy families pulled out of the bus station. There wasn’t even room for me on the big bus of unhappy families. There wasn’t room, period.
The dirty water in the bucket froze into a brownish block. I went back to the bridge and crawled into my nest and lay there quivering. OG left and came back with a metal garbage can he stole from a nearby building. He tried to start a fire in it, but the newspaper burned up so fast it was gone before we could get warm.
“We have to find some wood,” Maggot said through chattering teeth. “I think I saw some at a construction site up by the park.” He and OG went to look for wood. Tears and I stayed behind with
Pest, who lay inside my nest with me. Over the river the sea gulls slowly flapped their wings higher and higher, then glided in circles back down. I heard sobs coming from the nest Tears had made for herself.
“Hey, Tears,” I called. “What’s wrong?”
“I wet the sleeping bag. It’s cold.”
“Come over here with Pest and me. You’ll feel warmer.”
“But I’m wet.”
“Who cares?”
She crawled out of the sleeping bag and into my nest of blankets and papers. We lay on our sides with Pest between us. I wondered about Rainbow and felt an ache when I thought of Officer Ryan and that other policewoman taking her away.
Tears shook so hard she made the newspapers around us rattle. Her teeth chattered. She started to cry again. “I want to go home.”
“You can go over to the Youth Housing Project,” I said. “That lady Laura could help you.”
“I can’t. Not as long as he’s there.”
“Your stepfather? Maybe he’s gone. When was the last time you talked to your mom?”
“I don’t know. A long time ago.”
“Maybe you should call her.”
“How? I don’t have any money.”
“Collect.”
“Last time I did that she got mad and told me not to anymore. I don’t want to make her mad because then she won’t want me back.”
I knew if we went to the Youth Housing Project Laura might let Tears use the phone. But I also knew that Laura might give Tears a hard time about going back to the street. It’s one thing when you’re fifteen or sixteen. You’re halfway to being a grown-up, and if you want to be on the street, they know they can’t stop you. It’s different when you’re twelve. Then they think you’re still a kid.
I had another idea. “There’s a place where you might be able to make the call,” I said. “We could go see.”
“Let me get a little warmer first, okay?”
I opened the black ski jacket and tried to pull some of it around Tears. That seemed to help. When her teeth stopped chattering we got up and headed for the library.
When we got there, Bobby was outside wearing a heavy red plaid shirt under a green down vest. He had a blue cap with the earflaps down and a bright green bucket under his arm. Using a plastic cup he scooped white crystals onto the library steps to melt the ice. I stopped on the sidewalk.