NINE
I WAS awakened the next morning by the sounds of New York City. Surprisingly enough, they hadn’t kept me awake all night. Nor had they woken me up too early, I realized when I looked at the clock. It read 11:55 A.M. Sean’s bed was empty, as was Helen’s. Shutting my eyes and lying down again, I debated whether or not to actually get up. Five minutes later, I was up and dressed, at the insistence of the music, traffic, and garbage trucks outside. Sean bounced into the room a couple of minutes after that, as I was putting my things on a chair.
"Hi, Alida!" he greeted me, giving me that endearing smile. "Fred’s here, and everyone else is up. Are you gonna eat lunch with us?"
I returned his smile. "Yeah, I’m coming. Sean. What are we having?"
Sean shrugged. "I dunno. Let’s go see." He grabbed my hand with his tiny one and began pulling me toward the kitchen with a strength that surprised me. When we arrived, John and Uda-san were there. From the looks of it, Uda-san was nowhere in sight, and John was reading the newspaper. They looked up as Sean and I walked in (well, Sean was walking; I was being dragged). John gave the two of us a fatherly smile.
"Good morning, glad to see you’ve graced us with your presence," he cracked, winking at me.
Sean giggled, and I snorted. "Sure you are," I joked, not without a hint of irony. "That’s what they all say."
John chuckled and shook his head. "Isn’t it a bit early for you?" he teased me, looking at his watch. "It’s only lunchtime, after all."
"Yeah, this is the crack of dawn," I retorted, grinning. I usually woke up around eight or eight-thirty, even on weekends and in the summer. I rarely slept until noon. Then again, rarely had I had a day so exciting as yesterday. It seemed as if the day had lasted a year, what with nearly getting butchered and all. I suppose that does that to you.
"I bet you’re awake with the birds," John said, his grin growing wicked. I sensed he was about to do what I’d heard Sallie call "taking the piss."
So I just nodded and admitted, "About eight or eight-thirty at the very latest, actually. Not quite with the birds, but close enough."
His gaze turned interested. "Really? I’d never have pegged you for that. Do you ever watch the sunrise?"
I thought back to Connecticut and to my rooftop where I’d spent many a morning watching the sun come up. And many an evening watching the sun go down as well. It had been one of the few things that had given me the notion that there had to be more to life than what I was experiencing. It had inspired some of my best writing. It was one of very few things I missed in Connecticut. "Yeah, I used to sit on the roof and watch it all the time. And I’d watch it go down, too. It’s so refreshing."
John nodded in earnest agreement. His eyes were lit up, and they seemed to illuminate everything in the room. "Yeah, they are. They rejuvenate you, don’t they?"
"What do?" Fred asked as he walked into the kitchen. Upon seeing me, he immediately crossed the room and put his hand on my shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked, concerned. His deep brown eyes stared into mine, worry clouding them. I knew that episode with my father had upset him, but it had obviously made him paranoid, even more so than John.
"I’m fine," I replied, taken aback. "Why wouldn’t I be?"
Fred let out a sigh, and relief flooded his features. "Good." Something else had gone wrong last night. I could tell. Something serious had happened.
"Fred, what happened? Why are you so worked up?" I asked anxiously. Visions of him being assaulted by my father, of my father demanding to know where I was on pain of death...but if anything like that had happened, he wouldn’t be standing in John’s kitchen this morning. He wouldn’t be standing anywhere. If anything, he’d be lying down, probably in a morgue.
He didn’t answer for a moment, just closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. He stood like this for more than a minute. My heart beat faster. John was beginning to get anxious too now. He leaned forward and asked tightly, "What’s going on, Fred?"
Fred opened his eyes and sighed. "Alida, Sallie called me last night. She said that your father had come back to the apartment and--"
"WHAT?" I cried, my heart going into warp speed. This could not be happening. I had to leave. I had to get out of New York, out of the country...off the continent would be best... "Is he--what--how--"
Fred silenced me by putting his hand on my other shoulder. "He began throwing things around and destroying the place, and finally he grabbed her and started yelling at her that if she didn’t tell him where you were, he’d kill her. Well, she didn’t tell him, naturally, and he stormed out, saying that he’d find you or someone else would." He took another deep breath, trying to calm himself, and me, too, a little. "I just wanted to see that he hadn’t come here."
I couldn’t speak. I was paralyzed with fear. John seemed to have similar feelings. His faced paled and he sank back in his chair. The silence prevailed. Sean, looking equally frightened, broke the silence.
"What’s gonna happen, Daddy?" he asked in a small voice.
John’s face immediately changed. Now he just looked dismayed rather than scared to death. (An improvement, I suppose.) "I don’t know, sweetheart," he sighed, patting Sean’s back absently. "I guess we’ll just have to be more careful."
By then I had recovered the ability to speak. "John," I said, in a voice that sounded as small as Sean’s, "I’ve gotta leave."
John turned to me sharply, staring at me as if I’d just started crying hysterically and running around the room screaming gibberish. Which was not an altogether unlikely occurrence, considering the situation. "Are you fucking nutty, Alida?" he exclaimed, his eyes widening. "You can’t leave, what if he finds you?"
I was too stricken with panic to think logically by that point. "No! He won’t...he’s gonna find me here..." I babbled.
John impatiently jumped to his feet and took my shoulders firmly, the most decisive action he’d ever executed since I’d known him."Alida, listen. We’ve got security here. He probably won’t be able to get in if he knows you’re here. But if you’re out on your own he can and probably will, right?" he said slowly, as if speaking to a small child. Then he paused, and, a wry grin on his face, remarked, "Christ, I can’t even remember why he’s after you in the first place."
That brought me out of my state somewhat. I had to smile too; in all this madness, the reasons for all this had never been brought out. To anyone. I wasn’t even sure why he was still chasing me; after all, all I’d really done was get smart with him. "Well, that’s because I never told you, really," I said carefully. Fred and John both looked at me imploringly. Damn. I knew sooner or later I couldn’t lie to them anymore...
"Look, John, after I left that first day we met...I got back to the apartment and my parents were there waiting. My--Henry was drunk as usual. He grabbed me and asked me where I’d been, and I told him I was `not here.’ He started twisting my arm around and demanded to know where I was, started cussing me out, called me a smart-assed bitch.
"When I told him I was at a bookstore, he didn’t believe me, kept twisting my arm. He told me if I didn’t tell him, he’d put me through such hell I’d wish I’d never been born. I said, `Fuck you, you’ve never cared before, you’re power hungry, you won’t do fuck all to me.’
"My mom stepped forward and begged him not to do anything, but he hit her and she hit her head on the wall. Then he hit me and I went flying across the room, into a stack of boxes--he was angry about me not helping them unpack, though they hadn’t been--and then he left. Sallie took my mom and me to Roosevelt and we got treated and released. Then I went back to the apartment and stayed inside for awhile, until that morning you and I bumped into each other in the hall." I stopped for air, exhausted from reliving that day (and from hardly stopping for breath as well).
John and Fred looked shocked, yet somehow not so shocked. Then, almost simultaneously, their shock turned to anger. "That fuckin’ prick," John remarked, the anger blazing in his eyes. Fred merely shook his head in dismay.
Sean, who had been almost completely forgotten, looked amazed. "Wow! Why did he do that?" The three of us turned to him, surprised. His dark eyes were wide with awe and fear.
"Sean, don’t tell anyone, all right?" John gently said to him. "I don’t want anything leaking out."
That comment confused me a bit, but I was too drained and afraid to pay it much attention. "John, don’t tell anyone yourself, okay?" I wearily said.
John turned back to me, his expression grave. "Alida, I don’t think that’s--"
Fear once again rushed up to my throat. I grabbed John’s arm pleadingly. "John, please. I don’t want to go live in a foster home or some other crappy place,"I begged, putting on my best look of desperation. Which wasn’t completely feigned.
John sighed, looking just as weary. He seemed to be deliberating what to do, or even say. At last he said, "Look, you can’t live here forever, you know. Sooner or later, someone’s gonna come looking for you, and you’ll have to go somewhere else. I’m not your father, I’m not even related to you."
Fred spoke up. "So what do we do? Send her back to her parents?"
"Fred, there’s nothing we can do," John insisted. "What if her dad does find her and tries to have me--or you--arrested?"
By then my anger was beginning to grow. "Is that all you’re concerned with? Not getting yourself in trouble? Everything nice and easy?" I demanded, my tone becoming a bit mocking.
John didn’t react by becoming angry himself, as I’d expected. Instead, he shook his head, closing his eyes. When he opened them, I saw the hurt, and it hurt me. I immediately felt bad about what I’d said, mainly because I somehow knew it wasn’t the truth, or the reason. "Come `ead, you know that’s not right," he quietly replied. "I’ve been in enough shit with the government. I just barely got my green card. But that’s not the reason."
Fred, in a bold moment, asked, "Then just what is the reason?" I was surprised by how blunt he could be where some things were concerned, such as Sean...and even me.
John pursed his lips. 'Forget it. I won’t tell anyone, Alida." I heard the subtext: Not yet, anyway. Well, not yet would have to be good enough for the moment.
I nodded. "Thanks, man."
After a moment of silence, Sean piped up with, "Can we eat lunch now?" His question broke some of the tension, and we started to laugh.
"That sounds good," I remarked, grinning.
Fred looked as if he’d just been hit by an Idea. "Why don’t I go get us some food?" he suggested.
Naturally, John and I were both suspicious. "What have you got in mind?" John asked, his question double-edged.
Fred pretended not to notice the double meaning. "Chinese, maybe?" His brown eyes definitely showed signs of a plan forming.
"I wasn’t talking about the food,’’ John sharply came back.
"I don’t know what you were talking about, John," Fred replied, mock-innocently.
I rolled my eyes, not believing him for an instant myself. "Oh, come off it, Fred. What’s up your sleeve?"
Fred smiled cryptically. "Oh, nothing. I’ll be back soon." With that, he was off.
John and I exchanged a glance, and I hesitated just a second before I jumped up and followed Fred to the door.
C.J. © 2002