No Parking at the End Times (13 page)

When I come to a McDonald’s, I sit on the front step and watch the people pass, wrapping my arms around myself to keep warm. I don’t move as people come in and
out. Some of them glance at me, but most are intent on keeping their eyes pointed anywhere else. I scan the street. I don’t know where else to look for Aaron and Jess besides the park, but I’m not ready to face it yet.

An older lady comes out of the door and hands me a small brown bag. At first, I’m confused. But then I smell the eggs, the sausage. She has a cup of orange juice in her hands. It’s almost a rote response when I say, “No thank you.”

“Take it,” she says. And without another word, sets the bag and the orange juice at my feet and walks away.

I stare at the bag for a second before opening it and pulling out the sandwich. I eat it in three bites and gulp the orange juice down in one long swallow. I could eat five more and still feel hungry.

A manager comes out the door and shoos me off the small staircase, saying I’m not allowed to beg. I don’t argue with him or explain that I didn’t ask for the food. I put on my backpack and walk slowly toward the park.

I circle the outskirts until I come to the place where everybody usually hangs out. I sneak into the trees and study the hill. I can see E and Silas sitting in a circle with
a couple of other guys I don’t recognize. Aaron and Jess aren’t there.

Something flashes next to me, a glint of light like a quarter at the bottom of a pool. Before I can turn, I hear: “Who will come with me!”

Trumpet Man sits in the bushes, wrapped in a garbage bag. His long blond hair is matted and twisted into what might have once been dreadlocks. His horn, oddly polished considering his clothes and face, sits next to him on top of an overstuffed backpack. He stumbles to his feet and says, “I am bound!”

He trips over his backpack, yelling loudly. I look over to the hill. E is headed toward me, and everybody is watching.

“Please be quiet,” I say.

Trumpet Man works his mouth, trying to say something. All that comes out is a loud, “Wide extended plains!” And then, inexplicably, he picks up the trumpet and plays one long note.

I’m about to run away when I hear E’s voice.

“Abigail? Is that you?”

Behind me, Trumpet Man is mumbling. E doesn’t come into the trees and he speaks low. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m trying to find Aaron and Jess.”

At their names, E bends down and pretends to tie his shoe. He looks over his shoulder and then says, “What do you mean, you’re trying to find them? Where’s your brother?”

“I have no idea,” I say. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

One of the guys yells for E, who waves him off without turning around. “Just stay in the trees. These guys know Skeetch.”

I inch closer to the trunk and E says, “So, you haven’t been to Sea Cliff?”

“No—what’s going on?”

“Oh, shit. Okay, so Jess is there. She got into it with Skeetch last night and then your brother found out and everything went to shit. It’s all fucked up, okay?”

Nothing he’s saying makes sense. He closes his eyes in an attempt at concentration.

The guys E was sitting with stand up and start walking toward the trees. Behind me, Trumpet Man shifts; the garbage bag he’s wearing sounds like dry leaves in the wind. E looks over his shoulder quickly and says, “Aaron was going to the church to find you. So maybe you guys can cross paths. If not, go to Jess. Please.”

As I slip out of the trees, I hear E say something about that crazy dude with the trumpet, followed by the unmistakable voice of Trumpet Man: “I am bound!”

I think about going to Sea Cliff, but ultimately it isn’t hard to decide which direction to go. I can’t let Aaron sit at Brother John’s, waiting to be seen by Mom or Dad. By any of the other nameless people we’ve sat next to night after night. As I walk, I assure myself that he’s too smart to be caught. Too smart to let everything get ruined so easily. But when I get to the church, he isn’t there. I stand across the street, in the folds of a closed dry cleaner’s front porch and watch the block as carefully as I can.

Every time a person appears on the street, I tense—ready to run. Ready to whisper-scream Aaron’s name. I imagine his face, shocked—surprised. When he sees me, I’ll let him ask his questions—
How? Seriously?
—and then I’ll tell him I’m ready to go. That there’s nothing holding either of us here anymore.

I’m still thinking about Aaron when the door of the church slams open, hitting the plaster of the building hard enough to dislodge a sizable chunk. And then it’s Aaron, looking over his shoulder and running as fast as he can.

I don’t think before stepping out into the street and yelling his name. He skids to a stop and stares at me, confused. But he doesn’t say anything I expect—
Are you kidding?
or even
What the hell, Abs?
Instead he looks over his shoulder one more time and says, “Run!”

As soon as he says it, Dad comes tearing out of the church—his hair wild with sleep. I don’t see Mom, not that I have a chance. Aaron sprints ahead, faster than I thought he could go—I can barely keep up—and we run, quickly outpacing Dad, who yells after us. Both of our names, slowly disappearing among the sound of cars and trains until the only thing I can hear is our feet hitting the ground and our breath, heavy in the cold morning air.

We don’t stop until Aaron cuts into the football stadium, going down the steps two at a time until we’re both standing on the track. Aaron watches the entrance for any sign of Dad. But even if he was still chasing us, he’d be at least two blocks behind.

“This way,” Aaron says, motioning toward a small tunnel where, when the stadium was still in use, the teams would wait before coming onto the field. We catch our breath, neither of us saying anything. I try to erase the picture of Dad, struggling to catch us. His strangled
voice. Aaron stands up, hands on top of his head, and stares at me.

“They’ve probably already called the cops,” he says. “You should’ve waited for me to come back to get you.”

I can’t bring myself to tell him that Mom and Dad did nothing when he left. They sat in the church, praying—asking God to do something when every moment of the past week should’ve told them that number was disconnected. And while I’m sure they’re worried—Mom is probably sick with it—I know they didn’t call the police when they found me gone this morning. The only thing they’re doing right now is staring at the ceiling and hoping whatever magic they believe in will still change the world.

“How was I supposed to know you were coming back?”

Aaron lets his hands fall off his head, and he nods. All he says is, “I wouldn’t leave you there. You know that.”

Aaron doesn’t move, except his eyes. They flit around my face, taking in everything. When he speaks, his voice is soft.

“What happened to your head?” I reach up, touching the scrape from last night. We’re too close to getting out
of here for me to tell him the truth. Who knows what he would do, how he would react.

“Nothing. I fell down when I was running away last night.”

He stares at the scrape for a second and then says, “I know you’re worried about it, I know you don’t want to go—but we need to get out of here today.”

At this point, I’d be willing to walk home. Even if it took a year of hiking alongside the highway, stopping to camp wherever we could find a spot.

“I’m ready,” I say.

For the first time in my life, I think I might see Aaron cry. Instead he clears his throat and says, “Yeah, well, going back to the church wasn’t a total waste.” He pulls a small envelope from his pocket and hands it to me. A fat stack of bills is folded inside.

“Where did you get this?”

“Brother John’s briefcase. You realize this is the money Mom and Dad gave him, right?”

I nod, because I don’t want to think about it. These bills, folded so perfectly into the envelope, are another example of our failure.

Actually, no. Not our failure. Their failure. I need to
retrain my brain, to repurpose the word “we” to only include me and Aaron. I hand the envelope back to him and say, “Is it enough?”

He looks past me, into the heart of the stadium. His face is thin and lined with stress.

“Probably not. But all I care about is getting out of the city,” he says. “And we have enough for that. From there, I don’t know . . . but I’ll figure something out.”

“Is Jess okay?”

He says it simply, a flat “No. She’s not.”

I don’t ask what happened, because it doesn’t matter. Instead, I imagine us pulling away from the curb in some big bus. Watching as the city grows smaller behind us. We can call Uncle Jake from the bus stop when we reach home. Maybe from wherever we end up. The point is: we’re going, and it’s better than anything I’ve felt in months.

“Let’s go get her,” I say. “Right now.”

Aaron stuffs the envelope back into his pocket and shakes his head. “I need you to bring Jess back here. I have to go get the tickets.”

“I’ll go with you and then we’ll get her,” I say, because I can’t walk away from him again. I don’t want to face the city alone anymore.

“I was supposed to get her an hour ago, but then you weren’t at the church. . . . I’m trying to keep all the plates in the air, Abs.”

I don’t know if he means to quote another one of Dad’s weird sayings, and he doesn’t acknowledge it at all. But when I sigh, he holds out his pinky finger.

This is unchanging. This is omnipotence. The only thing.

I link my pinky finger with his.

This is it. We won’t see Mom and Dad again—at least not anytime soon. We’ll be gone, like smoke. One more risk and then we’re on the bus, the road—whatever it takes. As much as it hurts, I can’t deny the excitement of going home.

It feels strangely the same way it did when we first pulled into the city. Dad couldn’t stop smiling and butterflies wouldn’t leave my stomach. That was how everything started, but when does it end? The end could’ve been us in North Carolina, at the grocery store, fumbling with government-issued ways of getting food. Every eye on us; being taught how to pay, what to buy, by a kid in my chemistry class. That easily could have been our ending—us, surviving in North Carolina. But it wasn’t and I don’t
know how to act, what to do, except sit there and hold on to Aaron’s finger like it’s keeping me above water. And maybe if I don’t let go, he won’t leave. We can go get Jess together.

He pushes my shoulder softly and says, “Hey, it’s going to be fine. We’re going to get on that bus and everything will be better.”

I believe it. More than anything else in my life. I have to.

“Go get Jess,” he says. “I’ll meet you guys back here in an hour. Maybe two. Stay out of sight, okay?”

“What about you?”

He pulls me into a long hug, whispering in my ear, “It’s all good, Abs. We’re almost done.”

I run to the beach, but can’t get comfortable. My legs never loosen and my chest hurts the entire time. When I finally get to the fence, I can hear the ocean and feel the salt on my face as I take the stairs fast. The boulder we shared is empty. Down the small beach, other boulders jut out of the sand, but she’s not on any of them.

Still, I run down to the beach and look in every corner I can find. The only people out here are two older men in wetsuits, getting ready to swim out into the foggy bay.

I’m starting to get worried, when to my left something pops out of the ocean. At first, I think it might be a seal or some other kind of animal. Just as quickly, it transforms into sea foam, bubbling and disappearing. Another surge pours into the spot, spraying water high in the air. As it falls, half being carried away by the wind, I see something just beyond the last outcropping of rocks. A small huddled mass, blurred by the creeping fog. It could be a trick of the eyes, rocks and moss blending together—except for the hair. It burns, red as fire.

I lower myself off the boulder and follow the waterline until I’m directly across from her. I have to time the incoming wave, running when it recedes. I gasp as the water flirts with my heels. Jess sits in a small indentation in the rock, wrapped in a sleeping bag. The mini cave would be disguised if she wasn’t sitting on its lip. From the beach, this place is almost invisible.

“Don’t look at me,” she says, turning away. But I can see the damage anyway. Her face is swollen and splashed with cuts. A red line splits her bottom lip, darker than her hair.

She turns back to the bridge, back to the mystery of the water and fog. A place that, at night, looks
different—magical. A place you could escape to. But in the daylight it looks normal. Only a bridge.

Neither of us speaks. It’s not until the water splashes my foot that I make a sound, a pitiful-sounding squeal.

“It’s cold,” I say. Jess’s eyes glide to my face. She doesn’t move, not when the water splashes both of us, or when a strong breeze pushes her hair into her face. She only looks at me. Seeing her face—I can’t tear my eyes away—rips into me. The cuts, the dried blood. Did it happen after I saw Skeetch? Did it happen because of me? The idea that he went after Jess because of what I did to him burrows into my brain, slowly dripping into my stomach until I feel sick and can’t think of anything else. Between that and the reality of what happened last night, I have to sit down.

“I think this is my fault,” I say.

“Fuck that,” Jess says. “It’s his fault. You didn’t do shit.”

I don’t know who looks away first, but soon we’re both staring at the bridge again. The water is slowly crawling toward us and I’m scooting back when Jess sighs and says, “We were together. A while ago. And he thinks that means something.”

I try to imagine Jess and Skeetch, but it doesn’t compute.
She seems as much a part of Aaron as I am. Connected by something that won’t get cut away without a fight.

“Aaron knows some, but not all of it,” she continues. “It was when I first got here—I was fourteen. He made me feel special for about a week. Then I was stuck. When he got arrested, I thought it was finished. But, yeah, right.”

She looks over at me, and I wish there was something I could say to make her feel better. But everything I come up with—
Sorry
, etc.—feels too weak. For a second, I wonder how Aaron would react. The answer is definitive and comes quick.