Читать книгу Man Alive - Thomas Page McBee - Страница 19

11

Oakland

April 2010 ♦ 29 years old

My ears popped and a rush of sounds blew in: the smack of our feet as we ran, a wet cough, the slam of a closing window, the vibrating bass of a car stereo, irritated barking, tires on asphalt. We ran for blocks, barely noticing the passing jumble of porch swings, rock gardens, lawn ornaments.

I could have lifted a car, saved a baby pinned under its metal casings. The pinpricks in my limbs subsided, everything waking simultaneously. I sensed it: a portal opening. I felt myself waver for a moment between selves, all of them present: the child, the body I’d always been, and the one I would become.

I looked back at the empty street. “He’s gone,” I said, slowing a little, and Parker nodded but kept her eyes straight ahead. We moved in tandem past a fixed-gear bike chained to a wooden porch, past dark windows, past scooters and yard sale signs stapled to telephone poles.

Everything was sharp: the cobalt blue of the car beside me, the heat pouring off me, the smell of pavement.

“Are you okay?” I asked Parker, who grimaced with every step. Her pupils were huge, her face blank. Ahead of us, on the left, I saw movement in the leathery front seat of a parked Mercedes; a woman’s hands, the visor down, lighting the interior like a beacon.

“Stop,” I said. “Parker!” She looked back at me where I stood motioning at the car, like she wasn’t sure she could speak. He could be anywhere, I thought darkly, the victory of escape dwindling as I came to a full stop. Parker’s forehead was shiny with sweat. “Parker?” I asked, but she stayed quiet.

“Parker?” I wanted to tell her to get back in her body, to resist the freeze. “Hey,” I said, grabbing her hand. “We’re alright, okay?”

She nodded blankly, a little tremble in her lip. “Help,” I nodded toward the parked car.

“Okay,” she said, finally, her voice flat.

“You’re okay,” I said, grateful for once for the sound of myself. Something about my voice in the tick-tock eyes of this man had given me a new story where being female kept me safe.

I banged on the passenger side of the Mercedes, a storm of fists on the startled woman’s window. She rolled it down slowly to a winking slit.

“We’ve been mugged,” I said. Her hair was dark, her eye shadow heavy. I met her eyes, the way I’d learned to in a psych class in college. “He has a gun. He’s behind us.”

“Oh,” she searched our faces, assessing. She wasn’t much older than us, I realized, 35 tops. But she appeared ageless, her hair sleek and short, her blouse expensive, her skin wrinkled from laughing or smoking or both. “Okay, oh god; of course. Come on, I live here,” she pointed to a condo, one of the new ones, the ones we’d derided for their tacky, soulless gentrification vibe, big flat-screens displayed through picture windows. Parker stared dumbly at her and I fixed my jaw shut, willing myself not to cry as she pushed open the front door.

It was the carpet that undid me, heartbreakingly gentle under my feet. I could hear the wild whinny of my own sob, and it scared me. Parker reached for me and I fell against her, while the woman ducked quietly up her stairs, leaving us to it.

“You could have died,” Parker said softly, finally, her face wet as mine. I nodded. She smelled of jasmine and salt. I forgot the gun, and Vader, and the stillness; I wiped my nose on the back of my hand and thought, instead, about the running, how good it felt to escape on my own legs, to be one with my body.

“Ready?” Parker asked, getting some color back.

She could have been asking about anything.

“Yes,” I said, meaning all of it.