Дэвид Балдаччи - Mercy

It didn’t make her feel worse and it didn’t make her feel better. But at least it made Cain feel something.

Hallelujah, you survived it all, El. Now go to sleep and get ready for tomorrow.

Just in case it comes.

Her phone alarm dinged at six A.M., and Cain rolled over and yawned. She sat up and opened the window to get out the final dregs of any lingering pot smoke. But she wasn’t too worried. While they had random drug testing at her first place of work today, they used a blood test. A blood test could only detect THC, the component in pot that made you feel high, for about three hours after use. A saliva test could do it for between twenty-four and seventy-two hours. A urine test could nail you for up to thirty days after use. Hence, many employers used saliva or more likely a blood test as their testing tool. Otherwise, they’d test their way right out of business because they’d have no bodies to do the work.

That was the dirty little secret of the crap work world where millions labored every day. And the savviness of addicts who needed a job.

She opened her fridge, cracked three eggs into a glass, and drank it down raw. She had seen this done in an old movie about a down-and-out boxer named Rocky. Protein, apparently, which helped your body recover and build. Which was good, Cain thought, because it tasted like shit and had the texture of snot.

She changed into the outfit she had fought in — blood, sweat, and all — covered that with a hoodie and sweatpants, and slipped on a pair of worn sneakers. Then she left her place, padlocking the door on the other side. She ran for miles, her breath forming visible clouds with every exhale. Winter was coming with speed. But she would be snug in her little place, hopefully.

She liked to run, and her long legs and frame were built for eating up massive quantities of ground. Cain had been running her whole life. Sometimes for real, other times just in her mind, especially when she’d been locked up all those years. She would jog in place and let her imagination take her to any place other than the one she was in. The things she did in her mind to keep going, it was some wicked shit. Taught her stuff. Demonstrated that your mind could get you through anything. Anything. Because it had done so for her.

Psalm of my life: If you can’t live in the world you have, make one up.

She stopped at five different “tents and boxes” and handed out cash from her prize money at each one. These were not boozers or druggies, at least not mostly. They would use the money for food and other necessaries, because they all had young kids living with them in their distress.

“Thank you,” said one young mom, who was white but looked brown with the sun and the dirt. Cain could relate. This was the “tan” of homelessness. It was unlike any other skin tanning ever, Cain knew. It fried your brain as well as your outside. It never really came off you because you worried every minute it could happen again. It was like you were a fugitive for life and your only crime was bad luck or bad choices. When the rich and powerful made a mistake their lawyers and PR folks took care of it.

Cain waved the woman’s thanks off and kept running. The next family was black, the next one after that, too. The next ones spoke Spanglish and shivered in the chill. The next family, she couldn’t really tell what they were, not that it mattered. They were breathing, they were human. They look like me in that way. That was enough. Boxes were meant to house stuff, not put people in. Not until they’re dead, anyway. Most people looked at them and felt either sorry or disgusted, or both. Not Cain. She just saw folks who needed some help.

At the end she had given away over half her winnings.

She knew what the term “Good Samaritan” meant, but only because of the Bible reading. But that was not why she was doing it. She did it because today she had money and today they didn’t, but needed it. Keep it simple was Cain’s motto. When you thought too hard about it, you tended to want to keep what you had and dare others to try to take it.

She got back to her place and completed her daily workout with pushups, floor dips, chin-ups on a bar wedged in a doorway, lots of ab and core work with a medicine ball, and exercises with a kettle-bell she’d gotten for a buck from a gym going out of business. Then bodyweight lunges and squats and calisthenics followed by shadow boxing; she finished with some heavy-duty stretching.

The strong and vigilant don’t always survive, but it damn sure improves your chances.

She showered in cold water because that was all there was. She had started her period late last night. She had had her first period at age eleven while she was with the Atkinses. She thought she was dying when the cramps came and the blood dripped from down there. She had begged Desiree to help her. The woman had laughed and thrown her a roll of paper towels, telling her that it would come every month, like clockwork. She had added, “They sell stuff for it, but the paper towels will do for you. It’s not like you’re going anywhere. So deal with it.”

And Cain had dealt with it using the paper towels. Until Wanda Atkins had explained to Cain what was really going on, and given her boxes of tampons. That had been an eye opener. She remembered asking Wanda if boys had periods, too.

“No,” she had said. “Good thing, because they couldn’t handle it.”

Cain believed she spoke the literal truth.

Wanda had been nice to her, sneaking her books, taking care of some medical needs, bringing her some extra food. But she never once made any effort to free her. There were limits, Cain supposed, to people’s generosity. And morals.

For twenty-five hours a week and nine bucks an hour Cain operated a forklift loading packing crates onto tractor trailers. They wouldn’t allow her full-time work, because that came with benefits and other rights. All the guys there — she was the only female — were also part-timers.

She parked her Honda outside the terminal, put on her hard hat and protective shoe coverings and safety goggles, punched the clock, and climbed into her little rig. They could have gotten plenty of guys with heavy equipment operating licenses to do this, and who had been laid off in the recent downturn. But Cain was a lot cheaper and didn’t demand full-time work. People like her were a hot commodity in the free market right now. She was a worker who didn’t mind getting screwed: Employers loved her.

She liked the work because she didn’t really have to talk to or deal with anyone. She just climbed into her seat, manipulated her ride hauling the crates and boxes, and did her thing. Years before, she had earned a good living doing similar work. Then she’d been injured on the job and the painkillers had helped a lot, so she kept taking them. Then came the day when she couldn’t stop taking them. And then it wasn’t just painkillers. It was anything she could snort, swallow, or stick herself with. And there went her job and everything else.

Someone had suggested counseling. She had gone to one person but when he’d asked about any troubles in her past, she got up and left. It wasn’t worth it. Cain knew if she waded back into that, she’d just slit her wrists. There was only one way for her to go and that was forward. Some psych guy could write a book on her, but Cain would never read it. She had lived it. One ride through hell was enough.

Cain had never been to prison, only in jails for short periods for stupid crap she shouldn’t have done. Petty thefts, DUIs, drug possession, throwing a drunk accountant through a plate glass window for grabbing first her ass and then her breasts, only to have his buddies swear it was all her. Stuff like that. Shit happened; shit just happened to her more than to a lot of others, it seemed.