“I know you can’t turn it off, Cal—and I love you for that—but it’s unhealthy. You need something . . . a hobby—”
“I have lots of hobbies.”
“Name one.”
“Don’t start.” I think a moment. “Watching cop shows on TV.”
“That’s just so you can point out inconsistencies. Name a real form of entertainment. What was the last movie you saw? Or better yet—” He grabs the notebook-size steel case that’s wedged between my seat and the center console. My laptop.
“Here we go,” he says, flipping open the computer and clicking the History button in my browser. “Seeing the Web sites someone goes to, it’s like looking at the furniture arrangement of their mind.”
On-screen, the list isn’t long.
“SmartSunGuide.com?” he asks.
“That’s a good site.”
“No, that’s where you get Florida traffic reports and the public CCTV cameras—to spot homeless clients who’re sleeping under an overpass.”
“So?”
“And this one: ConstructionJournal.com. Lemme guess: up-to-the-minute building permits, so you can find all the new construction sites.”
“That’s where our clients tend to sleep.”
“Cal, you not seeing the picture here? No interests, no news, no sports, hell, not even any porn. You’re a damn walrus,” Roosevelt insists, cracking another pistachio. “When it’s walking on land, walruses are the most lumbering, awkward creatures God ever gave us. But the moment it enters the water, that sucker is quicksilver. Fwoooo,” he says, slicing his hand through the air like a ski jump. “Same with you, Cal. When you’re working with clients, you’re in the water—fwoooo—just quicksilver. The problem is, all you wanna do is stay underwater. And even the walrus knows if it doesn’t come up for air, it’s gonna die.”
“That’s a very inspiring and far too visual analogy. But I know who I am, and I like who I am, and when it comes to ass-face restaurant managers who treat money as some green-colored rosary, well, no offense, but I’m not for sale. And we should never let our clients be, either.”
He rolls his eyes, letting us both calm down. “Can you be more predictable?” he asks.
“I was trying to be complex.”
“Complex woulda been if you had taken the guy’s money, given it to Alberto, and then told him to go back and use it to eat at the restaurant.”
I glance over at him. The pastor in him won’t let up. Not until I get the message. As I try to save whoever’s out there, he still thinks he needs to save me. I know he misses his parish, but he’s wrong about this one. It’s not a crusade. Or an obsession. I could leave this job tomorrow. Or the next night. Or the night after that. Tonight, though, isn’t that night.
“I’m still not for sale,” I tell him. “And you of all people shouldn’t be, either.”
Roosevelt leans back in his reclined seat and lets out a hearty laugh. “Yo momma’s so fat—”
“Roosevelt, I shouldn’t’ve said that—”
“—the horse on her Polo shirt . . . is real!”
“You used that last week.”
“Yo momma’s so fat, in elevators, it says: ‘Maximum Occupancy: Twelve Patrons OR Yo momma!’ ”
“Does that really make you happier?”
“Just take the money next time, Cal,” Roosevelt says as he twists a dial on the old, stolen police scanner we superglued to the dash. The cops don’t care. On homeless calls, they want us there first.
“—ave an eighty-six, requesting—zzzrrr—nearby units to Victoria Park,” a woman’s voice says as the scanner crackles to life. The park is less than a mile away.
Turns out this is the call I’d been waiting nineteen years for.
3
Cal . . . I need help!” Roosevelt screams.
My tenth-grade English teacher once told me that throughout your life, you should use only three exclamation points. That way, when you put one out there, people know it’s worth it. I used one of them the day my mom died. But tonight, as I sit in the van and hear the sudden panic in Roosevelt’s voice— Across the wide patch of grass known as Victoria Park, he flicks on his flashlight. But all I see is the bright red blood on his hands. No. Please don’t let tonight be another.
“Rosey, what the hell’s going on?” I yell back, clawing over the passenger seat, sticking my head out the window, and squinting into the darkness. He’s kneeling over our newest homeless client—“86” on the radio means “vagrant”—who’s curled at the base of a queen palm tree that stands apart from the rest.
“It’s a bad one, Cal. He’s a bleeder!”
A ping of rain hits the windshield, and I jump at the impact.
If this were my first day on the job, I’d leap out of the van and rush like a panicked child to Roosevelt’s side. But this isn’t day one. It’s year two.
“You got his Social?” I call out.
Kneeling at the base of the queen palm, Roosevelt tucks his flashlight under his armpit and rolls what looks like a heavyset man onto his back. As the light shines down—the lumpy silhouette—even from here, I can see the blood that soaks the man’s stomach.
“His wallet’s gone,” Roosevelt shouts, knowing our protocols. “Sir. . . . Sir! Can you hear me? I need your Social Security number.”
In my left hand, I’m already dialing 911. In my right, I prop my laptop on the center console. But I never take my eyes off Roo-sevelt. Breast cancer took my aunt, the aunt who raised me, a few years back. I don’t have many friends. I have this job. And I have Roosevelt.
“Cal, I got his Social!” Roosevelt shouts. “Sir, were you mugged? You have a gunshot wound.”
“Gimme one sec,” I call out. The computer hums, our tracking software loads, and I click on the button marked Find Client. On-screen, a blank form opens, and I tab over to the section labeled SSN.
“Cal, you need to hurry,” Roosevelt adds as the man whispers something. At least he’s conscious. “He’s starting t—”
“Ready!” I insist, all set to type with one hand. In my other, I grip my cell and hit send as the 911 line starts ringing.
Years ago, if you wanted to drive around and work with the homeless, all you needed was a van and some Lysol. These days, the state of Florida won’t let you pick up a soul unless you’re logged on to the statewide computer network that tracks who’s where. The better to see you with, my dear. And the better to see what diseases, medication, and psychological history you’re carrying around as well.
“Zero seven eight, zero five, one one two zero,” Roosevelt announces as I key in the man’s Social Security number.
In my ear, the 911 line continues to ring.
In the distance, refusing to wait, Roosevelt rips open the man’s shirt and starts applying pressure to his wound.
And on-screen, I get my first look at his identity.
LLOYD RANDALL HARPER
DANIA BEACH, FLORIDA
DOB: JUNE 19—52 YEARS OLD
A swell of heat burns my chest, my throat. I can’t breathe. I open my mouth to call Roosevelt’s name, but my lips won’t move.
LLOYD RANDALL HARPER
My father.
“This is 911,” the operator announces in my ear. “What’s your emergency?”
4
Darting between two oak trees, I race through the black park as the rain collects in little rivers on my face. I ignore it. Just like I ignore my heart kicking from inside my rib cage. All I see is him.
When I was little, I used to have fantasies about finding my dad. That he’d be released early, and my aunt and I would run into him at dinner or while I was getting a haircut. I remember being in church on the plastic kneelers, praying that we’d find each other again in some dumb Disney movie way. But those dreams faded as he missed my tenth birthday. And eleventh. And twelfth. Within a few years, the childhood dreams shifted and hardened—to fantasies of not seeing him again. I can still run them in my head: elaborate escape plans for ducking down, running, disappearing. I’d ready myself, checking over my shoulder as I’d pass the bagel place where he used to love to get breakfast. And a few years after that, those dreams settled, too, entering that phase where you think of him only as much as you think of any other dead relative.