I walked pretty close to one of the sign-holding men. He seemed to be confused, or overtired, or coddling an awful hangover, because he held the sign so it said Stop to the drivers, but with his free hand, he motioned for the cars to move forward. No need to worry, I thought. There was plenty of time for him to turn things around.
The last thing I saw as I walked past all the workers was three men with shovels, who were only visible from their waists up, standing in narrow trenches and looking like gravediggers.
What Could Be More Important
After school, Skyler and I used to ride our bikes to a stretch of empty road. We both lived on the edge of Phoenix, where there were miles and miles of desert on the other side of our houses. We'd ride our bikes to a road that no one really used, where the rattlesnakes would he on the asphalt in the late afternoon, to soak up the sun.
We'd heard that rattlesnakes could only strike if they were coiled, so we felt pretty safe running over their stretched out bodies with our bikes. I don't remember who told us that. I don't know if it's even true. But sometimes, we could run over five or six at a time. Skyler held the record. Eight.
After we hit them, the snakes would purr and open their irate mouths. Some would take off for the sand. Some would coil, scream, dare us to come by again.
Today, though, we hadn't hit any yet, sitting on our bikes and watching them he there.
"Can I have dinner at your house tonight?" I said.
"I'll have to ask my mom. Do you want to hit them first?"
I smiled and pedaled toward the snakes. One of them was really long, maybe six feet. I hit it, swerved to miss the rest. I said to Skyler, "You see the size of that one?" but the snake had coiled up, making it hard to tell how long it was.
Skyler could go faster than me. He didn't pedal near the one I'd hit, but smashed three other snakes underneath his tires.
We sat on our bikes some more, watching the snakes act all ballistic.
"It's my birthday," I said. It really was.
"Mom get you anything?"
"I'll see later."
"Forget about asking my mom," Skyler said. "Come eat dinner."
When we got to his house, Skvler's mom was unloading groceries. He told her it was my birthday. She hugged me, picked up her car keys, and said, "Forget what I was going to make for dinner, what would the birthday boy like?"
"Whatever you were going to make is fine," I said.
"No way, Jose. Now what's it going to be?"
A couple weeks before, she'd taught me how to make her very own recipe: ground meat mixed with broccoli and tomato sauce. "Meat Trees?" I said, not really caring what we cooked, as long as we made it together.
"You liked my Meat Trees?"
"Loved them."
"Are you sure it's okay with your mom that you stay?"
"She said it's fine," Skyler said to her. "She's got a lot of work tonight."
Madeline pursed her lips. "You guys go play, while I go back to the store."
I wasn't really paying attention, as Skyler and I sat in his room, fiddling with little motorcycles. I was listening for his mom to come back.
As soon as she did, I said to Skyler, "I'm going to help her cook."
"I figured. I'm going to stay here."
I ran to the kitchen. "What can I do?"
"You don't have to do anything. Play with Sky."
"Please?"
"If you insist," she said, putting her hand on my head. We set all the ingredients out on the counter. "Should I call your mom and see if she wants to come to dinner?"
"She's real busy"
Madeline coughed. "But wouldn't you like her to try Meat Trees?" She handed me a knife, and I started hacking up an onion. "What did she get you for your birthday?"
"It's a surprise when I get home"
"Are you sure your mom wouldn't want to eat with us?"
"She can't."
"I'm going to call over there."
"She's real busy."
"I'm just going to ask. Is that all right, sweetie?" Madeline dialed.
I kept cutting the onion into smaller and smaller pieces. My eyes burned.
She kept the phone to her ear and said, "No answer."
"She's probably too busy to pick up right now Should I chop the garlic, too?"
"Yes, please."
I chopped away. She seasoned the ground meat with salt, pepper, Worcestershire. Skyler came in and asked how long until dinner was ready and she said twenty minutes. Madeline told me she'd be back in a minute, that she needed to talk to Sky really fast. They went into his room. I heard the door shut. I put the knife down and snuck over, listened with my ear pressed against it.
"I want to know where his mother is," she said. "I know she's not working."
"She is so."
"What could be more important than his birthday?" and when she said that, I didn't want to hear anything else. I didn't want to chop garlic or cook Meat Trees. I didn't want anything except to be by myself, so I snuck out through the garage and rode my bike home.
My mom wasn't there. Neither was Letch. I went into my room and loved myself. The phone rang, but I didn't answer it.
About forty-five minutes later, someone knocked on the front door. Someone rang the doorbell. I waited a while before I went and peeked to see who was standing there, but they were long gone. I unlocked it, opened it. Sitting on the ground was a Tupperware container with a note on top. It said, "Happy birthday. Your friends, Skyler and Madeline."
I locked the front door again and took the Tupperware in my room. I ate every last speck before I went to watch TV.
Down Here
Little-Rhonda and I sat on the burned couch, killing time. He'd come back a couple hours earlier, after I'd gotten home from seeing the Jordanian Girl. "I need you to dig down into the dumpster again."
The hand connected to my good arm got a grinding feeling, like a mill crushing peppercorns. "When?"
"Soon."
"Now?"
"After that crap-shack taqueria shuts down for the night," he said. "We don't want the hired help harassing you again." He turned his helmet's light off. "And speaking of harassment, what's with this disgusting couch?"
I told him the whole story, old lady Rhonda, her pyromaniac husband.
"But what's it doing in your apartment?" he asked.
"I'm keeping it for her. In case she wants to visit it."
"Visit a couch?" He looked at me like Karla had, horrified, appalled at my aptitude to do the wrong thing. "Are you listening to yourself?"
I was trying; we sat there until one a.m.
The dumpster was three-quarters full. There wasn't as much food in it tonight as the last time. It had more napkins and to-go boxes, which made it easier for me to toss everything out and into the alley.
"Why don't you ever help with this part?" I said to littleRhonda.
He shrugged, leaning against the dumpster, smoking. The light on his helmet was on. "You're the brawn, I'm the brains." He laughed. "Correction: the one-armed brawn."
I felt a few raindrops. It was weird to get rain in San Francisco before Halloween. I finished pitching everything out of the dumpster and opened the door in its bottom.
"After you," I said to little-Rhonda. He hopped in the dumpster and took off down the ladder. In a matter of seconds, I couldn't see him.
I hadn't really thought about how I was going to climb down a ladder with a broken arm until now. It was easier than I thought, as long as I kept my weight leaning into it and going really slowly. I called after little-Rhonda, "I need your help," and he said, "I know that," and I said, "I don't think you know what I mean," and he said, "I know exactly what you mean."