Get Gone

Her skin was black and her hair was tied back and sticking out in two nappy pig tails. She thought she was beautiful sometimes, but today she wondered how long this shirt was going to last before it became dim with dirt and sweat, and whether or not she should have worn shorts instead of jeans because the summer was at its hottest now. She thought she might go back and put some more clothes in her backpack, but she didn't. She would just buy some more.
She chained up her banana seat bike and tied her shoelaces, and walked down the sidewalk, down the strip, past the shoppers walking to their cars. Kids sitting outside the glass door smoking cigarettes. She felt like them somehow, but they were all older anyway and they probably thought she was all ghetto with her hair the way it was.
She shifted her purple backpack from one shoulder to the other and walked around inside the mall for a while, where it was cool. She bought a coke with two quarters and she sat on a bench and sipped it and watched the fountain, and then went and recouped those fifty cents from the water where weeks of wishes shimmered just under the surface. The sun set outside and the light changed inside and before too long the mall was closing and she left. She spent that night in an all night fast food place, in a corner where she was pretty sure that the one person working the counter couldn't see her. What she didn't know was that the lady could see her and wanted to say something, but didn't.
She fell asleep with her purple backpack as a pillow, and when she woke up her face was pressed against the formica table and her neck was sore. The sound of drive-through orders being placed had made their way into her dreams so frequently that she couldn't remember if she had been asleep at all.
In the morning she went back to the mall, and her bike was still chained up in the same place, untouched. She walked past, down the sidewalk like she did the day before. It was the center of the city, as far as she knew, and it was where everyone gravitated and it was where she could disappear. And find work, which was why she came here in the first place and didn't go to the bus station straightaway. Got to make some cash, got to get those feet on the ground, you stupid stupid, what is this? She was scared was what it was, and she didn't know any of these people, but they protected her anyway. She looked at the faces, and took comfort in thinking that some of those kids might be like her. But today was Sunday and by tomorrow they'd all be back in school and everyone would just be looking down on her and wondering what she was doing.
But I've got guts, I'm strong, I'm doing the right thing. This is good, this is better.
She read some magazines and ate some candy from a machine. There were beauty tips in the magazines, and she saw photos of hairstyles that she could have. She could take those frayed strands and press them or stretch them across her head or pile them in an elaborate pile of curls. A little ways down from the bookstore was a hair salon, where she could take a picture and they would make her into a mirror image of it. She decided that was the last time she'd buy candy. She looked at herself in the glass tabletop she sat at. I look like a queen, she thought.
She walked across the parking lot. The sun was almost midway through the sky, but she had expected it to be higher. She wondered what Charles was doing. Probably playing in the sandbox. That sandbox. He'd get sand in his blue cast again and would complain all day about how his wrist was itching. But no, he'd still be in his church clothes, those ragged slacks and that blazer, waiting to slip outside. Just waiting real quiet like he always did, and the TV would be on and the breakfast dishes wouldn't be clean, wouldn't even be taken off the table yet.
There was a red car now, and a man was tugging on a leash, trying to get the dog on the other end of it to climb out of the back seat. The dog was scared, she could tell. Its tail was between its legs and it was panting in that patient trembling way. Finally the man leaned in and just picked the dog up and carried it to the sidewalk and into the pet shop that was next to the appliance store. The automatic glass doors whisked shut behind them.
She waited a few moments, looking around. There was all the time in the world now. No need to hurry, like she always had before. She could breathe. No one was coming out from around the corner.
She walked back across the blacktop parking lot, over the curb and through those sliding glass doors. She'd been in there once before, with Charles. Not to buy anything, just to look. The tropical fish were the main attraction then, their colors all neon like and such a contrast to the whites and blacks and greens and yellows that made up their street, their house and classrooms and evne themselves. It was something else.
The pet shop smelled a little like wood chips, like the inside of a gerbil cage. But it looked very clean and orderly, so much so that only gradually would one realize that there were living things of every shape and size all around. Birds in cages, fish in tanks. People leading their pets around. Paws click clacked all over the tile floor.
It was a big shop, and in one corner a boy was taking the labrador from the man and gently leading it into a little room. There was a window looking into that room and the girl went over and watched as the boy stroked the dog's short fur. A woman in a thin white coat wrote something down on a clipboard, and then she took a needle from a cabinet. She gave the dog its shots and left, and the boy washed the dog and clipped is nails. The whole time, the dog sat still, patiently, trusting in a wary sort of way. The boy rubbed some lotion into the black fur, leaving it shiny and slick, and then he reattached the collar and led the dog out into the rest of the store. Nearly an hour had passed.
The man took his dog and the boy walked off down an aisle, and she followed him. Hey, she said. He turned. He was taller than her, but she felt a little boldness creep into her and put her at his eye level. He had thick glasses.
Do you know if I could get a job here?
Yeah, but I'm not a manager.
But are they hiring?
I know they're looking for people, but how old are you?
Sixteen, she said, and now she was a little bit taller than him.
You're sixteen?
Yeah.
Well I can get a manager for you if you want to fill out an application.
Can't you just get it for me?
Yeah, but they're in the manager's office.
Would I have to work the register or could I help clean dogs?
It depends.
He led her to the back of the store and knocked on a door. A tall man with a moustache opened the door. She wants to fill out an application, the boy said.
The man looked her up and down in one glance and asked her how old she was. She told him. Are you sure, he asked. She nodded. Of course she was sure. He gave her an application. You got a pen, she asked and he gave her one. She thanked him and smiled, but only enough so he'd think her polite.
She was planning on filling it out right then and there, but as she walked away that adrenaline rush rushed away, and she found herself passing right back through the sliding glass doors into the sunlight. The sun was all the way at its peak now, and she was hungry. She went to a deli because it would be healthy and spent some more of her mother's money. Each bite she ate was a handful of minutes spent cleaning hotel rooms, scrubbing floors, turning sheets, and she didn't care one bit.
She looked the application over. Name. Address. Age. She knew they'd ask for identification. She had her wrinkled blue social security card, but that was it. There were always ways around things, though, and she figured what wasn't asked would never be known. She just couldn't let them ask.
When she brought the application back an hour later the first thing the manager asked for after looking it over was some identification. She calmly handed him the faded social security card that had been in her purse for so long the paper felt like cotton. She didn't look him in the eye.
Do you have a picture ID?
This is all I got.
This isn't enough, though.
Why not?
Well, it just isn't. Look, I know you're not really sixteen.
How do you know?
How old are you?
I'm sixteen.
Look, we hire kids on the weekends to help out with the animals, and during the summer too. Would you be interested in that?
She hesitated and weighed her pride with necessity. Queens can submit now and then.
Does it pay?
But then they rise back up again.
Yes, we'll pay you.
And take back what is theirs.
But you'll need to get your parents' permission. They'll need to call up here and talk to either myself or another manager.
That was that. She nodded and thanked him and turned and walked away. The glass doors didn't open for her, she made them open with her footsteps.
The boy she had talked to earlier was coming back in and carrying a little pit bull that struggled and squirmed in his arms. Its owner was nowhere to be seen. The animal's growl was so low that it sounded more like a cat's purr, deep and constant.
She turned on her heels and followed him, caught up to him, got his attention.
You want some help with that dog?
I got it.
It don't look like you do.
He tightened his grip on the dog's collar and the folds of loose skin beneath it. So you got hired, huh?
Yeah. She said it like it had been a stupid question. Just now. I start tomorrow, though. But I can help you if you want.
What's your name?
Lilia.
Lily?
No, Lilia.
What's that, a flower?
I don't know, I didn't name me. You want me to hold him?
He's a she. She's just scared.
I can hold her. Give her here.
No, I've got her.
Where are you taking her?
Over here. Cathy, she's the vet, she's going to give her her shots.
Are you going to give her a bath?
No. Her owner only paid for the shots.
Where are they?
Shopping next door. They're picking her up in an hour.
I could take care of her until then.
That's what we've got the pen for, when the people leave their pets here.
She followed the boy into that room with the window. She watched as he set the pit bull down on the table, petting it the whole time, trying to calm her down. See that drawer? he asked. There's some alcohol in there and some cotton balls.
She found them and brought them to him, and then he relinquished the dog to her. She held it, gently, firmly. She could feel its skin moving beneath its close cropped hair. It hadn't stopped growling, and she could feel the baritone vibrations in its body. The boy dabbed a cotton ball with alcohol and rubbed it behind the dog's shoulder bone. It shuddered a little, a little earthquake to her fingertips.
The woman with the white coat came into the room. Hello, she said to the girl.
This is Lilia, said the boy. She just got hired.
Cathy smiled at her and the dog in her hands. You look like you're good with animals. Are you going to be helping out on weekends?
No, I start tomorrow full time.
Oh, I see. She nodded and didn't ask anything else. She asked the boy, whom she called Steve, if the animal was prepped, and what it's name was. It was named Bull.
Well that's dumb, Lilia thought.
Steve asked Cathy if he wanted her to hold the dog down, but Cathy said she didn't see why Lilia couldn't do it herself. She put on some rubber gloves and took a needle from the cabinet and a glass bottle of clear liquid. She sucked the liquid into the syringe and then carefully stuck into the spot under the dog's shoulder that was still a little moist from the alcohol. There we go, Bull. The dog whined. It didn't squirm anymore, but she knew it hadn't given up. There was just no reason to fight.
There we go. Cathy grabbed another cotton ball and marked that spot one more time. Two more shots followed, each with a separate needle, and then Cathy left in a hurry and with a smile.
Okay, I'll show you where the kennel is, Steve said. The pit bull's eyes rolled back, following the boy's hand as he reached for its collar.
Lilia didn't let go. Can't I just take care of her?
We can't keep them company, that's not the job.
I'm not working yet.
Well what are you going to do? The guy said he wouldn't be back for an hour and a half.
I'll just hold her until then.
Steve gave a flustered shrug. Okay, well. You can hold her in the kennel if you want, but she has to stay there.
Okay.
He led her to a nearby room that was more like a hallway, or a long walk in closet, with cages lining the walls, stacked up on each other. The air smelled like anxiety, and it was full of growls and yelps and purrs. Paws and noses poked through the gratings on the cages. If you want to leave, Steve said, make sure you put her in a cage. Just make sure the latch is shut all the way so she can't get out.
I'll stay here, she said.
I guess I'll just come get you when the guy gets here.
Okay.
She looks like she likes you, I guess.
Yeah.
You got some pets at home?
I don't got any, my parents don't want them. But I've played with some before. I like animals.
Yeah. I've got two dogs. I'm not supposed to have them, the lady runs my apartment doesn't like them. But they're real nice, so no one ever complains.
Do people bring their dogs and cats here if they don't want them?
No, it's not a pound. But we'll advertise for them, if they want.
Maybe I'll get one of those sometime.
I thought you said your parents wouldn't let you.
Yeah.
She looked back down at the pit bull, which was now curled up in her arms. She backed against the wall and slid down to the floor. Steve watched her. Later on that night he would see her again and she would ask him if she could sleep on his couch, and he wouldn't know what to say, and this was the image he'd go back to. Her in the corner of the kennel holding this dog like a baby.
Okay, well, he said. I guess I'll come get you in a while. I'm gonna shut the door.
All right, she said. Thanks.
He shut it. She leaned back against the wall and for the first time since she'd turned on her heels to follow him she let her heart slow down. She hadn't even noticed how tense she'd been. She felt a surge of panic, and overcame it. This wouldn't last, but for right now it was something. She wondered if Charles would ever be right here, right now.
The pit bull began to struggle in her arms; it sensed her growing lax, it sensed the fear of all its kin in the cages around it. She took a firmer grasp of the collar, of its thick loose skin. She lifted it by the nape of its neck, like a cat, just to see if she could, and then she tightened her embrace of it. She felt its tiny muscles straining, and was a little surprised to realize how much stronger than it she was. If she wanted to, she could keep it from moving at all, just by tightening her hold. She pushed down and prodded the bones, and they weren't all that thick. She could probably break them. She knew she could, with just a little twist. She could snap its back and kill it. Wasn't no blue cast could fix that. It was in her arms and she owned it. Yes you're mine, but see I love you. She relaxed and matched her breathing to the pit bull's.
Steve came back then. The hour and a half couldn't have been up. More like five minutes. Hey. Hey, you gotta leave.
That was that.
Can I stay though, she said.
He shook his head. No, you gotta leave. You'll get in trouble.
I just want to hold her.
Look. Look, I'm gonna get in trouble. You lied, you ain't hired.
I know I ain?t.
How old are you?
Eleven.
He shook his head. You know, he said.
What? She knew she looked like she was about to cry, but she knew that she wouldn't.
You're pretty tall for eleven.
Yeah, I know. Everyone says that.
So you gotta go. I gotta put her in the cage.
I'm not hurting anything.
I know, but look, I'll get in trouble.
She nodded. She watched as he took the dog from her and put it in the cage, where it began to growl that growl that sounded like a purr and it blended in to ambience of the kennel.
I ain't saying I'm sorry, she thought. She didn't. She walked out.
Down the sidewalk to her bike. Unchained it.
The parking lot was on a hill. If she pedaled up, she would end up back home. That's what she would have done, she would have, except that right then she felt like coasting.

****
The night before, the cashier behind the register at the fast food restaurant had watched that girl as she slept listlessly and shifted her head from her backpack to the table. That sleeping beauty. As the sun began to rise, the woman's replacement had come in and she left. She'd been working there for two years, and at other jobs like it, some better and some worse, all the years prior. She had made it home that morning by seven thirty, just as the school buses would have been moving up and down the streets if it hadn't been a Sunday. It was the same every day. Her own little girl had moved out seven years earlier, moved out and went on to better things, but still every morning of the week she made it home by seven thirty. That had always been enough time to say goodbye, a kiss on the cheek, a reminder not to forget lunch. Five minutes to take care of everything that needed taking care of.

All contents copyrigh©2003-2004 David Lowery and Road Dog Productions.